Privacy Policy

Definitions

Throughout this policy, to make things easier to read, we're going to use a few short acronyms and terms. For example, when we reference “platforms”, we're referring to multiple websites and applications (both mobile and TV) that we (Church of the Highlands) maintain. When we reference “Highlands Profile,” we're referring to an account connected to your profile that is used to login to many of our platforms. When we reference “services”, we're referencing third-party tools to which we have contracted to use. For a list of third-party tools used across our platforms, please email digital@churchofthehighlands.com.

Brief Overview

This Privacy Policy outlines the data we collect and how it is used during your interactions with Church of the Highlands and our digital platforms. You have a choice about how your information is accessed, collected, and stored by Highlands. Because we value your trust and take your privacy seriously, we strive to maintain proper security measures that protect your data.

In general, as you interact with us using our various platforms and services, we collect information appropriate to that platform or service. This may include general usage statistics, network activity information, or information you provide such as your name, email address, or other personally identifiable information. We use this information as well as inferences we gather to:

• To Provide personalized services and content.
• To create, maintain, and secure a profile (Highlands Profile).
• For internal analysis of the performance of our platforms.
• As described below in this Privacy Policy.
• For other purposes with your consent.

Your Profile and Information Collected by Our Platforms

Your privacy matters to us. Any information that you send through our platforms will never be intentionally distributed to anyone outside of Church of the Highlands. In the rare cases where sharing sensitive information is necessary, we will only do so at your request or when required by law, subpoena, or other legal process. In addition to our own computer network, Church of the Highlands uses several vendors to supply additional features to our platforms. In each case, these vendors are governed by their respective privacy policies.

When you create a Highlands Profile with us, your information is generally associated with a profile in our Church Management System (ChMS). We may combine this data with other data you provide as you engage with our platforms.

• WHAT WE COLLECT

  When logged in to one of our platforms, we may collect data on app downloads, opens, closes, crashes, and device information. We may also collect your name, email, phone number, or other personally identifiable information when voluntarily provided. Engagements with our platforms like icon interactions, message interactions, videos or live streams watched, interests posted, search interactions, prayer lists, project details, and organization details may be collected as well. This data is collected to power and improve your experience within our platforms.

  When logged out, we may collect anonymous data on app downloads, opens, closes, crashes, and device information. We may also collect anonymous information on UI interactions, and videos or live streams watched.

• THE WAY WE USE INFORMATION

  We use data to gauge the performance of our platforms, update your profile and contact information, match you with projects and small groups that match your interests, and to power personalization features in our platforms.

  Such data is not used for any other purpose and shall not be intentionally disclosed to outside parties. Church of the Highlands will never intentionally use or share the information provided to us in our platforms or services in ways unrelated to the ones described above without also providing you an opportunity to opt-out or otherwise prohibit such unrelated uses.

Our Commitment to Data Security

To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of information, we have placed appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online and believe these faculties to be secure to the best of our knowledge and ability; however, Church of the Highlands does not warrant, guarantee, and/or absolve security and/or unintentional disclosure of personal, identifiable information.

• DATA SECURITY

  We take reasonable technical and organizational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information. We never store your credit/debit card or other sensitive payment information such as bank account numbers on our platforms. All electronic transactions you make to or receive from us will be encrypted. Of course, data transmission over the Internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the Internet. You are responsible for keeping your password and user details confidential. We will not ask you for your password.

• EXTERNAL LINKS

  Our platforms may contain links to other sites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over the other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide while visiting such sites, and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

General Usage Metrics

While visiting various platforms, we log usage data such as viewing or clicking on content, interactions with our platforms, browser/device type, language, public IP address, the date and time of the request, unique device identifiers, and other interactions. This information may be combined with other identifiable information in order to provide a personalized experience for you. We also use anonymized versions of this data to determine unique views, total usage, a nd to analyze interactions. Cookies and other identifiers may be used to identify your device across different platforms.

An Introduction to Cookies

A cookie is a small data file that is automatically placed onto your computer's hard drive. Cookie files are created by our sites and placed onto your device in order to analyze and influence your preferences or behavior. Analytical cookies are designed to track your journey and experience on our sites so that we may tailor your experience and gather data. Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you other than the data you choose to share with us.

The majority of modern web browsers will automatically allow cookies to be placed onto your device. However, you can usually modify your browser's settings in order to prevent any cookies from being placed onto your device. Setting your browser to block cookies may prevent you from taking full advantage of our website.

COOKIES DEPLOYED BY OUR WEBSITE

• Ensure that functionality operates as intended
• Remember your choices and preferences during and between visits
• Allow you to share pages via popular social media networks including Facebook and Twitter
• Post enquiries via online forms
• Track your visit for statistical analysis and personalization, allowing us to improve the usability, speed and security of our website

COOKIES ARE NOT DEPLOYED TO

• Collect any personal identifiable information (without your express permission)
• Collect any sensitive information (without your express permission)
• Pass data to advertising networks
• Pass personally-identifiable data to third parties

Cookies Used by Our Website

• SOCIAL NETWORK SHARING

  We encourage users to share our content and/or like our profile on popular social media networks. In order to make social sharing accessible, our website utilizes widgets provided directly from the social media networks. Cookies and privacy implications from the social media networks vary and will be dependent on your nominated privacy settings with each social media network. Social sharing buttons will only deploy cookies if you are signed in to that respective social media network at the time of being on our website.

• ANALYTICAL TRACKING

  Our platforms use various analytical platforms, which allow us to track and compile anonymous visitor statistics. The information collected ranges from simple traffic volume to the type of browser you are using to view our website. This information is valuable to us not just for marketing analysis and quantification, but to improve the usability, security, and performance of our platforms and content. All vendors we partner with have been properly vetted and the data collected is subject to their respective privacy policies. Data is anonymized when possible. We review and ensure proper contracts between these vendors and that the agreements are in line with our own privacy policies.

  We also use Hotjar in order to better understand our users' needs and to optimize this service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users' experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don't like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users' behavior and their devices (in particular, device's IP address (captured and stored only in anonymized form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), and preferred language used to display our website). Hotjar stores this information in a pseudonymized user profile. Neither Hotjar nor we will ever use this information to identify individual users or to match it with further data on an individual user. For further details, please see Hotjar's privacy policy.

  You can opt-out to the creation of a user profile, Hotjar's storing of data about your usage of our site and Hotjar's use of tracking cookies on other sites by following this opt-out link.

• ENQUIRY FORMS

  Our platform visitors can choose to contact us via forms on our websites. In order to prevent spam enquiries, we protect our forms with anti-spam challenges which ensure the visitor is an actual living person, rather than a computer bot or spider.

How to Disable Cookies

Most modern browsers allow you to control your cookie settings for all sites that you browse. You can disable cookie deployment completely by editing your browser settings; however, in doing this, you may be limiting the functionality that is displayed on our website. To learn how to disable cookies on your preferred browser, we recommend reading this advice posted by Google.

If you are concerned about cookies tracking your movements on the Internet, then you may be concerned about spyware. Spyware is the name given to a particular type of cookies that track personal information about you. There are many anti-spyware programs that you can use to prevent this from happening. Learn more about anti-spyware software by visiting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware. You can also disable Google Analytics on all sites by downloading the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

How to Request Data Removal

You can request to remove your data specific to Church of The Highlands based on applicable law. Requests may take up to 30 days.

To delete your information, you can:
Email us at appsupport@churchofthehighlands.com