Privacy notice

Who we are

FOL Connect is the attendance check-in system run by RCCG Fountain Of Life Braintree, FOL House, 85–91 East Street, Braintree, Essex, CM7 3JW. We are the "data controller" for the information you give us here. If you have any questions about your data, contact our data protection contact at dpo@rccgfol.org.uk.

What we collect

• For adults: your name, phone number, email address (optional), address, gender, birthday (day and month only), your household's wedding anniversary (day and month only, optional), whether you serve as a worker and in which departments, and your family status.
• For children: their name, age, gender, birthday (day and month only) and any allergy or care notes you choose to give us.
• Attendance: the dates and times you and your household check in, and which programme (Main Church, Children's Church or Teens Church).
• Basic technical information, such as your IP address, used briefly to protect the system from misuse.

Why we use it

• To record who attends our services and keep accurate attendance numbers.
• To care for our church family, for example by following up with first-time and returning visitors and celebrating birthdays.
• To keep children safe, including making sure their teachers know about any allergies or care needs.
• To protect the system from spam and misuse.

We do not use these details for marketing, and we never sell or share them with third parties for their own use.

Our legal basis

• Attendance and household details: our legitimate interests in running the church and caring for our members and visitors.
• Because attending a church can reveal religious belief, we also rely on the condition that allows a not-for-profit religious body to process information about its members and regular contacts, as part of its legitimate activities. We do not share this information outside the church without your consent.
• Children's allergy and care notes: your explicit consent, given when you tick the consent box. You can withdraw this at any time by speaking to an usher or emailing us.

Children's information

Children's details are provided by their parent or guardian when registering their household. Only church administrators, pastors and the relevant children's team can see them.

Who can see your information

Only authorised church leaders can see your details, and each role sees only what it needs. Pastors and administrators can see full records. Deacons see limited attendance and follow-up details for pastoral care, and department leads see basic details for their own team members. Ushers never see existing addresses, emails, birthdays or allergy and care notes. Staff access is recorded in an audit log. The check-in screen itself only ever shows the first names of your household.

We use Supabase for secure database hosting in Europe. This website is provided through Lovable. Service providers process information to run the system on our behalf, not for their own marketing. You can contact us for details about hosting and any international data transfers.

How long we keep it

We keep your details while you attend the church. You can ask us to delete your details sooner at any time. If a household has not checked in for 24 months, we review its record and delete or anonymise it. Anonymised attendance totals may be kept for our records, but they no longer identify anyone.

How we keep it safe

Your information is stored securely with access controls, so only authorised staff can view it. Public pages cannot read the database directly.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law, you have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the information we hold about you
• ask us to correct anything that's wrong
• ask us to delete your information
• object to, or ask us to limit, how we use it
• withdraw your consent for children's allergy and care notes at any time

To use any of these rights, speak to an usher or email dpo@rccgfol.org.uk. We will respond within one month.

Complaints

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, please contact us first at dpo@rccgfol.org.uk so we can try to put things right. You can also complain to the ICO (ico.org.uk).

Changes to this notice

We may update this notice from time to time. The latest version will always be on this page.