privacy notice

Who we are: Grow Church, The Grow Centre, 12 Riverside Way, London SE1 4XY ("we", "us"). We are the data controller for personal information collected through this website. Contact us about your data at hello@growchurch.london or via the contact page.

what we collect, and why

We only collect what you choose to give us through the forms on this site, and we only use it for the purposes you tick at the point of submission:

• Plan your visit — your name, email, visit plans and (only if you choose to give it) your mobile number and your kids' ages, so we can welcome you, have the right Grow Kids groups ready, and (only if you tick it) follow up after your visit.
• Groups & courses — your name, email, optional mobile number, interest and area, so we can connect you with the right group, course or team.
• Grow Kids registration — parent contact details plus your child's name, date of birth and any medical or allergy information. Date of birth places your child in the right age group; medical information lets our team keep them safe and respond correctly in an emergency. This is children's and health data, so it is held in a restricted record accessible only to our safeguarding lead and the kids team leaders caring for your child.
• Prayer requests — your request and, optionally, your name, email and mobile number. Treated as confidential pastoral information, visible only to the prayer team leadership, and never added to mailing lists.
• Contact form — your name, email, optional mobile number and message, so we can reply.
• Join a team — your name, email, optional mobile number, age bracket, availability and any experience you choose to share, so we can talk with you about serving and connect you with the right team leader. Registering interest doesn't approve you to serve; for teams working with children or young people, a separate safeguarding process (including any required checks) always comes first, and we never collect safeguarding documents through the website.

consent, not assumption

Every form uses separate, unticked consent choices — responding to your request, visit follow-up, email updates — and we record which version of the consent wording you saw. We never combine them into one generic checkbox, and we never use your details for a purpose you didn't tick. You can withdraw any consent at any time by emailing us or using the unsubscribe link in any email.

how long we keep it

Only as long as needed for the purpose: visit and contact enquiries are removed or anonymised within 12 months of our last contact; group and course records while you're part of that group or course; kids registrations while your child attends Grow Kids, reviewed each September; prayer requests within 6 months. Records needed to meet legal obligations (such as Gift Aid or safeguarding records) are kept for the statutory period.

where it lives and who sees it

Submissions are stored securely in our church management records, with restricted, least-privilege access: kids and prayer records are held separately and are visible only to the named leads. We never sell your data, and we never share it outside the church except where the law requires (for example, safeguarding disclosures).

who processes your data for us

To run this website and respond to you, we use a small number of service providers acting as data processors on our behalf:

• Google — form submissions are stored in Google Sheets, processed by Google Apps Script, and confirmation and notification emails are sent through Google's email services (Google Workspace).
• Cloudflare — hosts and delivers this website and provides security screening for form submissions before they reach our records.
• Email delivery — the emails we send you are delivered by our email provider (currently Google Workspace).

These providers may process data on servers outside the UK (including in the United States and the EU). Where that happens it takes place under each provider's UK GDPR-compliant transfer safeguards, such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum and standard contractual clauses.

Access: only named team members can open the records relevant to their role — kids records to the safeguarding lead and kids team leaders, prayer records to prayer team leadership, everything else to the small admin team. Deletion: ask at any time and we'll delete your records (unless a legal duty, such as safeguarding or Gift Aid record-keeping, requires us to keep them); we also remove records on the retention schedule above without you needing to ask.

your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask us at any time to: access a copy of your data; correct it; delete it; restrict or object to how we use it; or move it elsewhere. Email hello@growchurch.london and we'll respond within a month. If you're unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

cookies & analytics

This site sets no advertising or tracking cookies. Draft form answers (excluding sensitive fields like medical notes and prayer requests) may be saved in your own browser so you don't lose them — they never leave your device until you press send.

changes to this notice

This notice is versioned. When we change it, we update the version number and date at the top of this page, and every form records which version was in force when you submitted.