PRIVACY POLICY

Last Updated: 07/17/2020

As noted in the policy below, the English language version of the PrivacyPolicy and Terms of Use will govern your relationship with ConnectCommunity Church. While the English version will govern, you can also use an automatic translation tool like Google Translate to view the documents in your language.

Important: Please Read This First

Since our launch in January of 2015, ConnectCommunity has gradually expanded its online presence in ways of offering services, content, and interaction with church members as well as new guests who desire to connect to our vision and mission.  Our vision is simple, to connect people to God, to others, and to their purpose.  Our goal is to equip and offer avenues for people to be able to thrive in those 3 domains; a vibrant and growing relationship with God, meaningful and real connection to others, and a deep sense of meaning and purpose in life.

Every digital product and service we provide intended to help more people pursue a deeper relationship with God in a safe and secure manner. We offer these tools as an act of ministry to serve you, and you have choices in your experience. You choose what you access. You choose what you share, and with whom. Your data is yours. ConnectCommunity Church does not sell your information, nor will we share it with others without your consent.

And every aspect of ConnectCommunity’s digital tools are completely free, with no strings attached and no advertising.  All of our platforms have been developed by a third-party company or ministry.  Organizations like Life.Church, Church Community Builder, Pushpay, and others are reputable organizations who serve ministries like ours with needed online platforms and resources to make our efforts available virtually. Our intent is to remove every possible barrier so you’re able to focus on getting to know God more intimately, connect to others more genuinely, and achieve your God-given purpose.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully because it discusses how your information my be collected, used, and shared. By using ConnectCommunity’s sites and services, you agree to this Privacy Policy and its terms.

We welcome any questions or comments you may have about this Privacy Policy and our privacy practices. If you have any questions or comments, you may contact us by mail at ConnectCommunity Church, 864 PO Box, Stamford, CT 06904, or by email at info@connectcommunity.tv.

Definitions

To make this document easier to read, we’re going to use some shorthand throughout. For example, when we say “our sites” or “ConnnectCommunity sites” (whether we reference them individually or collectively) we’re talking about the websites and applications offered by ConnectCommunity, but that are developed and hosted by third-party organizations, including (but not limited to) connectcommunity.tv, live.connectcommunity.tv, connectcommunity.tv/give, together with their subdomains and content. These are operated by ConnectCommunity Church, but may be owned by third-party developers and services.  We’ll refer to ConnectCommunity Church as “ConnectCommunity,” “us,” or “we” throughout this policy. When we refer to persons interacting with ConnectCommunity Church in this policy, we’ll use the term “you.”

Please note that using live.connectcommunity.tv, Church Community Builder, or Pushpay makes you subject to each of these third-party organization’s privacy policies, which can be found in their respective websites or by clicking the aforementioned links.

Brief Overview

This Privacy Policy outlines the types of data we collect from your interactions with ConnectCommunity and how we process that information. You have choices about how your personal information is accessed, collected, shared and stored by ConnectCommunity, which is discussed below. We take the privacy of the information you provide and that we collect seriously and implement security safeguards designed to protect your data, which are also discussed below.

In general, the information we collect depends on the services you request. It may include information that you provide (such as your name, email address, financial information and other personally-identifiable information). We use the data we collect and that you provide as well as inferences we make from that information as follows:

    • To provide, support and personalize your online experience;
    • To create, maintain, customize and secure a ConnectCommunity profile or account, if any;
    • To process your requests and respond to your inquires;
    • To provide information on our products or services;
    • To maintain the safety, security and integrity of ConnectCommunity.

sites and the infrastructure that facilitates use of our sites;

  • To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it;
  • To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights;
  • As described in this Privacy Policy;
  • In a manner we may describe when you provide the information; and
  • For another purpose with your consent.

Your Profile and Information You Provide to Us

We collect personal data from you when you provide it to us both offline and online. You do not need to provide personal information to us to use the ConnectCommunity sites; however, we allow you to create a profile which allows you to have a more personalized experience. To create a profile, we require your first and last name, your email address and a password to authenticate you when you try to access your profile. Beyond the personal information needed to create a profile, you have choices about what additional information you provide to us, which may include your zip code, the names of your family members, gender, social security number, and your martial status, all of which will be stored by Church Community Builder in association with your profile. Certain information may be required based on your specific request, such as your social security number for employment inquiries and volunteer requests; we will notify you of this at the time of such a request. We also collect information about you when you send, receive, or engage in communications with us, including when you submit personal information or requests by emailing info@connectcommunity.tv. We retain those communications to process your inquiries, respond to your requests, and improve our sites and our services.

If you have a profile with us, the information you provide us is generally associated with your profile and is stored by Church Community Builder, our third-party relationship management system or “CRM system.” We will use this information to authenticate you and allow you to access your specific profile. We create user profiles for off-line purposes as well, which include volunteerism and inquiries concerning employment. We may combine the information you provide us for your profile and interactions with our sites with information you provide us through other ConnectCommunity sites, services and products and inferences we make from the same for our internal development to improve the overall quality of our sites, services and products. We may also make recommendations to you for other ConnectCommunity services based on the information you provide and we infer.

Giving

If you choose to provide a voluntary donation through ConnectCommunity sites where you are able to make a donation, then and only then will you be prompted and required to provide credit card, bank account, and other payment information necessary to process the transaction. We will collect the designation for your donation, if you provide one, and personal information such as your name, address, phone number and/or email address to ensure that your donation is used for the purpose you request and to provide you with a “Annual Giving Statement” that itemizes your donation(s) for tax purposes or your personal use. This information (with the exception of your financial information) is stored in connection with your profile if you have created one for another purpose; or, if you have no preexisting profile with us, we will use this information to create a profile for you in our internal CRM system. We will not store or otherwise process financial information provided to us online for the purposes of making a donation. As of the date of this Policy, we use Pushpay to process your online donation payments. For information on how this third party processes your information, please refer to their privacy policies which may be found here: https://pushpay.com/legal-center/privacy/ . For donations you provide to us in person or by mail, we only store the amount donated and associate it with your profile.  We do not store your financial information (checks, credit card number,) in our database.

Volunteers and Employment Inquiries

You may apply to be a volunteer for miscellaneous activities and events in person at ConnectCommunity, over the phone and through our website. You may also apply for employment in person and through our sites. The information we require for volunteer and employment applications are your first and last name, telephone number, address, social security number, date of birth and, in the case of a job inquiry, your employment history. We will use this information to create a profile or associate it with your profile if one exists. We will use your social security number and date of birth solely for a background check in connection with your application to be a volunteer and/or employee, and will not share either with any other party except for third party service providers that enable us to perform background checks which are obligated not to share your information or use it for any other purpose. If you become an employee of ConnectCommunity, your personal information is also used in connection with your employment.

As a ministry volunteer, you may have access to third-party software which allows you to schedule and check-in to your volunteer activity, as well as manage other volunteer activity. This location-based information is stored in association with your profile to enable you to see your past volunteerism, and we also use it for our own internal analysis of volunteerism.

GPS

Our app uses GPS information to identify when you are near our physical location. You will be given the opportunity to provide consent for us to use this information when you first download or begin to use our app. If you provide that consent, we use that information to enable push notifications related to interactions with our ConnectCommunity sites and physical location.  We do not store this information outside of your device. Once your particular session of use of the feature ends, we will cease to have access to your GPS location unless you use the feature again. After your first use of this functionality and consent for us to use your GPS location, we will assume we have that consent unless you revoke it through the settings of your mobile device.

Communications from Us to You

From time to time, we may contact you as set forth below. You may opt out of receiving certain communications from us by modifying the settings of your application (where applicable) or by contacting us at the information below.

Recommendations and General Information

We use the data we have about you and inferences we make from that data to recommend certain content and functionality as well as additional products and services offered by ConnectCommunity. We may contact you through push notification, email, mail or in-app messages to discuss these recommendations, how to use our sites, and other news messages.

Giving

If you have given a donation to us, we use the data we collect about that donation to inform you of the effect of your giving. We may also contact you periodically in the future to inquire if you would like to give to another program or purpose. We may contact you through push notification, email, mail or in-app messages to discuss these opportunities.

Security, Legal and Technical Issues

We use your personal information to respond to and resolve technical issues and complaints concerning our sites and as necessary for security purposes or to investigate possible fraud, violations of law or agreement or attempts to harm self or others. We may use your information to contact you about these accounts, security, legal and other service-related issues. Please be aware that you cannot opt-out of receiving such messages from us.

Notice

We may use your personal information to provide notice regarding a security incident or data breach, by: (i) sending a message to the email address you provide (as applicable); (ii) posting to a publicly facing page of ConnectCommunity sites or through an in-app messages; (iii) through major statewide media; and/or (iv) telephonic means, including calls and/or text messages, even if sent via automated means including automated dialers. Standard text and data messaging rates may apply from your carrier. Notices sent by email will be effective when we send the email, notices we provide by posting will be effective upon posting and by in-app messaging when the message is made, and notices we provide through telephonic means will be effective when transmitted or dialed. You consent to receiving electronic communications from ConnectCommunity relating to your use and access of the services provided by ConnectCommunity. It is your responsibility to keep your email address and any other contact information you provide to us current so that we may provide these communications to you.

Analytics and Performance

We internally analyze the personal data available to us and use of content found on our sites. In some cases, we work with trusted third parties to perform this research, under controls that are designed to protect your privacy as discussed below. We may disclose statistics concerning the use of our site in an aggregated manner with de-identified and anonymized information that does not disclose any particular user or that user’s personally-identifying information. For example, we may use your data to generate statistics about overall usage of one of our sites worldwide or in specific geographic regions.

Disclosure of Your Information

We do not share your personal data with any third-party advertisers or ad networks for third party advertising purposes. We may disclose your personal information to third parties as discussed below.

Disclosure on Your Behalf

We may disclose personal information that we collect or you provide as described in this Privacy Policy to fulfill our obligations, the purpose for which you provide it, a purpose you request or a purpose for which we have your consent.

Disclosure by You

If and when you share information through our sites, that information is viewable by you and by anyone else you choose to share it with. If you give access to your account to other applications and services, based on your approval, those services would then have access to your shared information. The use, collection and protection of your data by such third party services are subject to those third parties’ policies.

Internal Disclosure

We will share your personal data internally within ConnectCommunity to help combine the personal information covered across the different aspects of ConnectCommunity sites and our other products and services to help provide services to you in a manner that is personalized and useful to you and others. For example, when you give financially, we may add you to our snail-mail database.

Content Providers

We utilize certain third parties to provide content on our sites. We do not share personal information of users with these third parties. We may, however, provide these third parties with analytics concerning the use of their content using de-identified and anonymized data.

Legal Process and Subpoena

It is possible that we will need to disclose information about you when required by law, subpoena, or other legal process. We may dispute third party demands when we believe, in our discretion, that the requests are overbroad, vague, or lack proper authority, but we do not promise to challenge every demand. We may also need to disclose your information if we have a good faith belief that disclosure is reasonably necessary to (i) investigate, prevent, or take action regarding suspected or actual illegal activities or to assist government enforcement agencies; (ii) enforce our agreements with you; (iii) investigate and defend ourselves against any third-party claims or allegations; (iv) protect the security or integrity of our sites; or (v) exercise or protect the rights and safety of ConnectCommunity, our users, personnel, you, or others. We also reserve the right to confidentially disclose personal information we have about you in connection with a potential or actual merger or acquisition such as the sale of all or substantially all of our assets.

Church Online

ConnectCommunity allows users to access its services through an interactive platform called Church Online. Where you use Church Online, we collect your first name, last name, nick name, email and phone number to create your Church Online account. We also collect your age, gender, and time zone, date of birth, and city and state where you provide it. Where you create a Church Online profile, the automatic data collection technologies referenced above are used to log your IP address and phone carrier to help associate your uses of your Church Online account from session to session and to better facilitate Church Online chat communications. In addition to the content and posts noted above, Church Online allows users to chat with other users and create other shareable posts, such as emojis and reactions to certain content, where you “raise your hand” in Church Online, and what content you choose to stream and access when using this site. We store this information in association with your Church Online account for so long as you do not delete the content.  Church Online is provided and owned by Life.Church.

Children

A parent or guardian may consent to the use of our sites or services by a minor. However, we ask that you discuss the risks of sharing personal information on the Internet with your children and require that they refrain from communicating with any third parties or share any personal information online or otherwise without the supervision of a parent or guardian. Should you allow your minor child to use our sites or services, you shall be solely responsible for providing supervision of the minor’s use of the same and assume full responsibility for the processing of any information provided to us by that minor. Where you associate your minor child’s information with your account, we will assume you consent to our processing of that information in accordance with this policy and other privacy notices and terms we may provide to you from time to time. Where we are provided a minor’s information by an adult or a minor while accompanied by an adult, we will assume that the parent or guardian consents to our use and processing of that information in accordance with this policy and other privacy notices and terms we may provide to you from time to time. If you believe we might have any information from or about a minor child without parental or guardian consent, please contact us at the information below.

Processing of Data

We will collect and process personal data about you where we have lawful bases. Lawful bases include consent, contract and other legitimate interests. Such legitimate interest include protection to you, us and third parties, to comply with applicable law, to enable and administer our internal processes, to manage corporate transactions, to generally understand and improve our relationships, and to enable us and other users of our sites to connect with you to exchange information, provided that the foregoing adequately protects your rights and freedoms. Where we rely on your consent to process personal data, you have the right to withdraw or decline your consent at any time and where we rely on legitimate interests, you have the right to object. If you have any questions about the lawful bases upon which we collect and use your personal data, please contact us at the information below.

Third-party Information Collection

This Privacy Policy applies only to sites and apps that are owned and operated by ConnectCommunity. Please keep in mind that our sites may contain links to other websites or apps. You are responsible for reviewing the privacy statements and policies of those other websites you choose to link to or from one of our sites, so that you can understand how those websites collect, use and store your information. We are not responsible for the privacy statements, policies or content of other websites or apps, including websites you link to or from a ConnectCommunity site. Websites containing co-branding (referencing our name and a third party’s name) contain content delivered by the third party and not us. If you choose to link to other websites, applications, and services or profiles you have with third party applications, you will provide the personal data stored on those applications to ConnectCommunity. For example, you may link your Facebook account to your profile, providing personal information you have opted to share through Facebook to ConnectCommunity. When you do so, we are provided with your Facebook (or other applicable social media) username. You may revoke the link with such accounts and third party applications by modifying your settings with those applications. As noted above, third party sites that link to or are associated with our sites may collect information through the use of automated technologies such as cookies. We have no control over such collection and use, which are subject to the privacy policies of those third parties.

Users From Outside the United States

We are based out of Connecticut within the United States and your use and this Privacy Policy are governed by the laws of the United States and the State of Connecticut. If you are using one of our sites from outside this state or country, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where we are located and our central database is operated. The data protection and other laws of the State of Connecticut might not be as comprehensive and may differ from those in your state or country. By using a ConnectCommunity site, you consent to your information being transferred to our facilities and to the facilities of those third-parties with whom we share it as described in this Privacy Policy.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices. As we improve our sites, this may also mean the collection of new data or new ways to use data. If we collect materially different personal data or materially change how we use your data, we may modify this Privacy Policy. We will post any changes to our Privacy Policy on this page. The date the Privacy Policy was last modified is identified at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you concerning any changes and for periodically visiting this Privacy Policy to check for any changes.

Contact Information

To ask questions or comment about this Privacy Policy and our privacy practices, you may contact us at: ConnectCommunity, PO Box 864, Stamford, CT 06904, or at info@connectcommunity.tv.