Privacy Policy
Purpose
Shepherd’s Gate Church (“Shepherd’s Gate”), recognizes that an individual’s privacy is very important to them and that they have a right to control their personal information. Shepherd’s Gate acknowledges that when an individual provides personal information about themselves to another party it is an act of trust. In response, Shepherd’s Gate takes the process of upholding an individual’s privacy very seriously. Unless an individual gives Shepherd’s Gate explicit consent to act otherwise, the following policy will govern how Shepherd’s Gate handles an individual’s personal information and safeguards their privacy.
Scope
The principles contained in this privacy document apply to all personal information collected or submitted to Shepherd’s Gate.
1. What information of yours does Shepherd’s Gate collect?
Shepherd’s Gate collects two different types of information. One type is voluntary information, which you provide, such as registration information for events, membership information, or shipping and billing information. The other type of information Shepherd’s Gate collects is user information provided by your computer each time you visit this site, such as IP address, browser. The information that Shepherd’s Gate collects helps us to provide information and service to you. We may combine information from other sources with the information that we collect.
2. What does Shepherd’s Gate do with the information that is collected?
Any information that you provide to Shepherd’s Gate or that is obtained through this web site may be used for church purposes. Shepherd’s Gate will not sell, rent or lease your personal information to commercial entities. Shepherd’s Gate will not disclose your name, address, e-mail address or phone number without your express consent, unless disclosure is necessary to comply with laws or relevant legal proceedings.
Shepherd’s Gate may offer services to you such as chat rooms, message boards, or other similar discussion forums. Please be aware that any information you divulge in these arenas is deemed public information and is not protected.
3. What are “cookies” and how does Shepherd’s Gate use them?
Cookies are information that a web site transfers to an individual’s PC for record-keeping purposes (e.g., if you are a Wall Street Journal Interactive user, a cookie on your PC allows you to go directly to the WSJ instead of having to give your user name and password each time). Cookies can save your preferences when you are at a site. The use of cookies is an industry standard and most major web sites use them.
Shepherd’s Gate may use cookies to help us see which areas of our web site are more popular, which are not, how they are being used so that we can improve and update our web site to more accurately meet the needs of our users. At some point in the future, if Shepherd’s Gate decides to offer personalized services to its users, we will use cookies to make that personalization and customization of the Shepherd’s Gate web site possible.
Most browsers (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome) are initially set up to accept cookies. You can reset your browser to either refuse all cookies or to notify you when you are receiving a cookie and allow you to decide whether or not to accept it.
We do not use cookies to obtain any personal information about you before or after you leave the Shepherd’s Gate sites.
4. How does linking to other sites affect my privacy protections?
As a courtesy, Shepherd’s Gate may provide links to other sites that are neither owned nor controlled by Shepherd’s Gate. Some of these sites may use the Shepherd’s Gate logo. These third party sites, however, are NOT subject to or bound by the Shepherd’s Gate Privacy Policy. Such third party sites may or may not have their own privacy policies and may or may not collect personal information from you or place cookies on your browser. Shepherd’s Gate is not responsible for the privacy policies or any information collection practices of these sites or any damages resulting there from.
5. What type of security procedures are in place to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of your information?
The security of the information that you provide to us is very important to us. Consequently, we have taken several measures to protect your information. All transactions involving sensitive information, such as your credit/debit card number and expiration date, are conducted using a SSL (Secure Socket Layer) connection. This connection provides increased security to the information as it is transmitted to our web site.
6. How does Shepherd’s Gate protect the privacy of children?
Shepherd’s Gate encourages parents and guardians to spend time with their children online. No information should be submitted to or posted on Shepherd’s Gate’s web site by users 16 years old and younger without the consent of their parent or guardian. Unless otherwise disclosed during collection, Shepherd’s Gate will not provide any personally identifying information, regardless of its source, to any third party for any purpose whatsoever for our users 16 years and younger. If any services or features on the site require registration, a user 16 years old and younger will be required to provide the email of the parent or guardian which will allow us to notify that person that the child has registered for a service or feature. Parental or guardian consent will consist of an email from that person to Shepherd’s Gate stating that they are aware that the child is using the web site. Identifying a user as 16 or under is not easy and Shepherd’s Gate will not be held responsible for anyone misrepresenting as over 16 when in fact they are not.
7. Shepherd’s Gate reserves the right to change or amend this policy.
Shepherd’s Gate reserves the right to change, amend, or restate this policy.
8. Your affirmative consent to Shepherd’s Gate’s collection and use of personally identifiable information.
By using Shepherd’s Gate’s website, you are giving us your express consent to use all the information that we collect about you in the manner described in this policy. This includes the release of such information to third parties as described above.
9. Questions or Concerns?
If you have questions or concerns about this privacy policy, please contact our Policy Officer at: PolicyOfficer@shepherdsgatepdx.org
