Privacy Policy

Our privacy policies are written in plain rather than legal language. Our goal is for you to fully understand our privacy policies. The bottom line with absolutely anything you do on the Internet is that it is not 100% secure. This is why the big companies, such as retailers and credit card companies, that do business on the Internet have fraud divisions. Have you ever received notification of a data breach from any company you do business with? Equally important is to understand that once you release information into the wild of the Internet, never assume it can be completely deleted.

Traversing the landscape of the Internet is a risk. Think of the risk of a daily commute to work. Thousands of accidents happen every year with varying consequences, but people still drive to work every day. Many take specific precautions, such as wearing seat belts or taking a less-traveled route, but risk still exists. It is the same on the Internet. You may use your credit card to buy things from a major retailer’s website but be hesitant about using the “shopping cart” for an online business you know nothing about. However, data breaches happen with the big companies too.

It is safe to say that people rarely read privacy policies for any website. Being aware of that, we wanted to write this one in a way that educates you about our policies as well as giving you insight into general facts of how your information gets spread far and wide any time you are use the Internet.

Who we are

Our website address is: https://blainesburgbiblechurch.org. We also own www.blainesburgbiblechurch.com that redirects to the dot org URL.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Comment and contact forms may ask for your name, address, email address or telephone number in order to get back in touch with you after you reach out to us. Also, please review Privacy Information for Online Donations below.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help with spam detection and prevention.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture may be visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact forms

Keep in mind that contact forms are not secure. The contact form generates an email that is sent to an email address that is monitored by volunteers. Your contact messages are then read and intended to be forwarded to an appropriate party for followup. We need a way to contact you back, so including your email address or phone number is necessary. If you would rather contact us by telephone, the church office phone number is 724-785-3192.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will likely persist for at least one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for approximately two days, and screen options cookies last for approximately one year. This can change as software is updated. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for approximately two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after approximately one (1) day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

Analytics include information such as the browser you are using, your closest location based off of your IP address and other such data to track performance of our website and its goal of reaching as many people as possible.

Who we share your data with

Blainesburg Bible Church will not willingly share any of your data with anyone outside of the church staff except for general information that may be shared to demonstrate how the website is reaching people. General data includes things such as the region your IP address reports a location for. This would be used, for example, to share that the website is reaching people in your geographical region.

If you leave a comment, message, prayer request or send an email, any information you share may be viewed or heard by multiple individuals and groups. For example, prayer requests will be shared with the church body and possibly on camera during a live stream event. Prayer requests may be shared with other pastors, churches or followers of Christ for them to pray. Always use discretion when posting, commenting, emailing or sending prayer requests. Keep in mind that even in the best-case-scenario, no information you share on the Internet is private. It passes through too many servers (think of it as hands) before it gets to its final destination.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely.

For users that may register on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their usernames). Website administrators can also see and edit user profile information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service or other third-parties.

Your contact information

We will not willingly share your contact information outside of church staff or volunteers unless you request that it be shared. Please keep in mind that names and details will be shared when prayer requests are made.

Additional information

How we protect your data

There cannot be any assumed data protection as we have no control over how data traffic is handled by our domain hosting company,  our Internet Service Provider (ISP) or other sources that connect to and through this website on our end or your end of the data chain. Emails and other forms of contact messages are read by volunteers and forwarded to the appropriate parties.

What data breach procedures we have in place

Through our actual website we do not collect any critical data such as Social Security Numbers or credit card information. No extra data breach protection is in place as we do not collect any critical financially related information. We rely on the data protection of our website hosting provider. (See Privacy Information for Online Donations below.)

What third parties we receive data from

There are too many third-party data handlers and processors to list them. We have our hosting provider, ISP and separate email service providers to mention a few. Any number of sources that process data to keep this website operational can collect or send data that we may be completely unaware of. This is not unique to our website. This is how the modern Internet works. So, in plain language, do not ever reveal information online you consider sensitive, private or in need of critical protection from prying eyes.

What automated decision making and/or profiling we do with user data

Comments are checked for spam. Information may be checked to determine the region it comes from.

Industry regulatory disclosure requirements

No known industry requirements or disclosures are available for this privacy policy regarding this church website.

Privacy Information for Online Donations

In March of 2020 we began accepting online donations. We use Payeezy through First Data. We obtained the service through PNC Bank. Using any “Donate Now” buttons on this website or entering information programmed into one of our pages for the purpose of completing a credit/debit card donation routes your information through First Data’s system. We do not control the processing, handling or security of your credit/debit card information while a transaction is being processed.

Just like with any other business that accepts credit/debit card transactions, those in charge of church financial stewardship, such as our Treasurer, have access to the details of each credit/debit card transaction.

This policy page was last updated on June 21, 2022 at 05:32 PM.