Privacy
Your information
How Restoring Lives Worship Center looks after the personal information you trust us with. See also our terms of use.
Who we are
Restoring Lives Worship Center UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (no. 1054709) and the controller of the personal information described here: we decide how it is used and are responsible for it.
Write to us at Stonebridge Primary School, Shakespeare Avenue, London NW10 8NG, email info@rlwc.org.uk, call 07483 383325, or speak to any of the ministers on a Sunday. Bishop Omar Elliott is responsible for data protection in the church.
What we hold, and why
- Your name and contact details, when you plan a visit, join, give, book an event or ask for help: to welcome you and reply.
- Your account: your sign-in email, a scrambled (never readable) password, two-step sign-in settings, and a record of sign-ins, to keep your account safe.
- Your place in the church: membership, the groups and teams you belong to, the Sunday register, and anything you tell us when you will be away, so we can care for you, as our members' handbook sets out.
- Messages you write in your group's conversation or in the live service chat. Your group's messages are seen only by the group and by the church staff who look after groups; live chat by those watching.
- Prayer requests and pastoral notes, seen only by the ministers caring for you (and your group's leaders if you choose).
- Your gifts: amount, fund, date, and any Gift Aid declaration or GoodtoGive number, to thank you, send receipts and statements, claim Gift Aid and keep the accounts a charity must keep. Card details go straight to Stripe; we never see or store them.
- Gifts to Bishop Elliott's personal ministry from the United States (Zelle and Cash App) that you tell us about: name, email, amount and date, used only to send your receipt. They are kept apart from the charity's own giving records.
- Your progress in the Academy, your reading plans and your certificates.
- For children's ministry: what a parent or carer gives us to keep a child safe, including any medical or allergy notes (seen only by children's leaders), check-ins and who may collect them.
- For serving: the teams you are on and, for roles with children or adults at risk, your DBS check record, as safeguarding requires.
- Requests for help from the feeding programme (Bridging the Gap) and the Benevolence Fund, used only to help you.
- Stories you share with us, published only with your permission.
- If you turn on phone alerts: a technical address for your phone (no phone number), so the church's alerts reach it.
Our lawful basis
Our legitimate interests as a church in caring for the people connected with us and running the church; legal obligations, for charity accounts, Gift Aid and safeguarding; our agreement with you, for your account, bookings and monthly gifts; and your consent, for news emails, phone alerts and published stories.
Because church membership reveals religious belief, and care notes can touch on health and family life, we also rely on the condition that lets a not-for-profit religious body hold this about its members and regular contacts, provided it is not shared outside the church without consent (UK GDPR Article 9(2)(d)). Safeguarding records rely on the safeguarding conditions in the Data Protection Act 2018.
Where it comes from
Almost everything comes from you. Some comes from others: a parent or carer for a child, the ministers and leaders who care for you, Stripe when you give online, GoodtoGive for Gift Aid matching, and the Disclosure and Barring Service for DBS checks you agree to.
Emails and alerts
News about church life (what's on, services, events) only if you say yes and confirm it from your inbox. Every news email has a one-click unsubscribe, and you can change your mind in My details & privacy at any time.
Emails about things you use — your account and security, receipts, bookings, rotas, your groups, certificates — are part of the service and come whatever you choose about news. We never send text messages and never sell or share email addresses.
Who sees it
Only people in the church who need it for their role, and each role is limited on our website to what it needs: the ministers for pastoral care, the office for giving, children's leaders for children's details, the feeding programme team for requests for help. Every sensitive look and change is recorded.
We use trusted services to run the website, each under a written contract (Article 28) that lets them use your information only to provide their service to us:
- Vercel (hosting and file storage) and Neon (the database), in the United States.
- Stripe (card payments), Resend (sending email), and GoodtoGive (Gift Aid), in the UK, EU and United States.
- Sentry (recording technical errors so we can fix them), in Germany. It never receives names, emails or what you type.
- Apple and Google, who carry phone alerts if you turn them on (the alert says only who wrote, never the message).
- YouTube (Google), whose player shows services and sermons, in its privacy-enhanced mode.
- We share information outside the church only when the law requires it (for example HMRC for Gift Aid, or the police or local authority to protect someone from harm), or with your consent. We never sell it.
Information sent abroad
Some of these services store or handle information in the United States. When they do, it is protected as UK law requires: by the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the company is certified, or by the UK's International Data Transfer Addendum to the standard contractual clauses. Our nightly backups are encrypted before they leave our website.
How long we keep it
For as long as you are connected with the church, and then no longer than we need. The website clears old records automatically every night:
- Password reset links: 7 days after they expire.
- Requests for help (feeding programme), once dealt with: 12 months.
- Other follow-ups (visits, offers to serve), once done: 24 months.
- Requests to join a group, once answered: 24 months.
- Group conversation messages: 24 months; a removed message 30 days.
- Stories shared but never published: 12 months.
- Prayer requests, once answered or closed: 12 months.
- Benevolence Fund requests, once closed (amounts paid stay in the accounts, without the name): 24 months.
- "I'll be away" notices: 12 months after the absence.
- Email delivery records: 24 months.
- Audit and error log: 24 months.
- Donor names and emails on gift records: 7 years (6 years plus the current year), then the gift is kept anonymously.
- Backups: 30 days.
- Live chat messages and "watching from" towns: 30 days.
- Members, regulars and their records: While they are part of the church; people not seen for 2 years are listed for review.
Children
You must be 13 or older to create an account. Children's information comes from their parent or carer and is used only to keep them safe in children's ministry. A parent or carer can see, correct or remove their child's information by asking the church office.
Your rights
You can ask to see the information we hold about you, have it corrected, have it erased, restrict or object to how we use it, take a copy to use elsewhere, and withdraw any consent you have given. Most of this you can do yourself in My details & privacy, including downloading your information; or ask any of the ministers, or use the contact details above. We answer within one month, free of charge.
Some records we must keep even after erasure: giving amounts for the charity's accounts (without your name after seven years), Gift Aid declarations, and records kept to protect children. No decision about you is made automatically by a computer.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, or 0303 123 1113.
Visitors from the United States
We are a UK charity, and this notice and UK law govern how we handle information wherever you live. We do not sell or share personal information for advertising, and we do not track you across other websites, so there is nothing to opt out of; we respect Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track signals regardless. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13 online. Gifts sent to Bishop Elliott's personal ministry by Zelle or Cash App are not donations to a charity and are not tax-deductible. To ask about your information, contact us as above.
Changes
We update this notice when what we do changes, and show the date below. Last updated 16 October 2026.