Privacy & cookies policy

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SPCK Privacy and Data Protection Notice

1. Who is collecting my data?

(a) We are SPCK, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, a registered charity (no: 231144), (Data Controller ICO Registration No. Z5839636), and company incorporated under Royal Charter, registered at 36, Causton Street, London SW1P 4ST with company number RC000557. We can be reached by email spck@spck.org.uk or phone 020 7592 3900.

Inter-Varsity Press (IVP), a registered charity (no: 11055757), a subsidiary of SPCK, is a company limited by guarantee registered at 36, Causton Street, London SW1P 4ST with company number 05202650. IVP can be reached by email ivp@ivpbooks.com or phone 020 7592 3900.

(b) We are a publisher and operate several imprints including:

SPCK
IVP
Apollos
Marylebone House
Diffusion Books

We also run websites including but not limited to:

And mobile apps including but not limited to:

Prayers on the Move,
SPCK Library,
Clergy Support Trust App,
For Everyone Bible,
Thy Kingdom Come

(c) We fundraise from churches, trusts and individuals, whose donations help to further our charitable objectives, which you can read more about here.

2. Why does SPCK have a privacy notice?

We want you to feel happy sharing your data with us. That is why we want to be completely transparent about which of your personal details we request and how we will use them. This will allow us to offer you the best possible service. This Privacy Policy sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us and the organisations we work with.

We are also required by law to explain what personal data we hold, how and why it is collected, how it will be used, who it will be shared with, how this might affect you and what you need to do if you wish to exercise your rights or make a complaint.

3. What data are you collecting, why, and on what legal basis are you processing it?

(a) We use your data for administering your donations and legacies, fulfilling your orders for goods and services, managing your relationship with SPCK and / or IVP, for our internal administration, on occasion for surveys in order to improve how we work and the products we produce and for our own legal and financial records. In all cases where we process your data, it will be on one of the following legal bases:

We have a contract with you and need to process your data in order to fulfil the terms of the contract;
You have given us consent to process your data in order for us to provide you with goods or services which you have requested;
We have a legal requirement to process your data (for example in respect of charity, money laundering or tax law);
We have a legitimate interest as a charity and company in processing your personal data, inasmuch as it relates to the operation of our business, is a use which you would reasonably expect us to make of your data and has a minimal impact upon your privacy.

Further information on data protection law and legal bases for processing is widely available in the public domain. Each paragraph below refers to a way in which you might relate to SPCK and explains what data we process in each case and the legal basis on which we process it.

You can update your contact preferences at any time via our Update Preferences Page but this will not override our legal obligations in respect of contracts we may have with you, or under charity or financial law.

(b) If you register on any of the SPCK websites, in person at an event or over the phone, or via any of our apps, for newsletters or promotional material, we will collect your name, email address and contact preferences so that we can send you that information by email, in accordance with your request. We pass your details onto to our bulk email service provider, CommuniGator Limited as Spotler , which processes your data for the purpose of fulfilling your communication request. In this capacity, Spotler acts as a data processor on our behalf. They also reserve the right to process your data for their own legitimate interests, including but not limited to product development and business operations. With respect to these purposes, they act as a data controller. You can opt out or manage your preferences here or by contacting us at the address given above.

(c) If you shop on any of our bookshop websites (www.spckpublishing.org.uk and www.ivpbooks.com) or via any of our apps, either as a guest or as an account holder, our merchant services provider (BCL NuMedia Ltd, trading as The Firsty Group) will collect your name, email address, postal address, phone number, and payment details (if required) and will pass these on to our fulfilment company (Gardners Books, only so that they can handle your order and contact you if there are any problems with it, in order to fulfil our contract with you. SPCK will use your email address to send you newsletters and promotional material. For this purpose, we pass your data to CommuniGator Limited, trading as Spotler, to process on our behalf. Spotler may also process your personal data for their own legitimate interests, including but not limited to product development and business operations. If you no longer wish to receive our newsletters or promotional material, you can opt-out or change your preferences here at any time.

(d) If you download one of our apps (For example, Prayers on the Move, SPCK Library App, NRSV For Everyone app, and any other apps produced by SPCK) your use of those apps will be subject to specific terms and conditions connected to that app, which will identify any specific use of your personal data which we may make, that is outside the terms of this privacy statement.

(e) If you follow us or interact with us via social media (such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram), we can only see the data that you have made public. We do not store or process this data other than to interact with you on those platforms. Each social media platform has its own privacy policy over which we have no control. If you sign up for our apps using your social media account (such as Facebook or Twitter) we only receive your email address, which we use in order to create an account for you, but we do not store any other details. Each of our apps has its own terms and conditions, which will identify any specific use of your personal data which we may make, that is outside the terms of this privacy statement. If you enter one of our competitions on social media, we will only collect your data for the purpose of administering the competition (such as sending you a prize). Once we have used your data for this purpose we will not continue to store your data. The competition may also have its own terms and conditions, which will identify any specific use of your personal data which we may make, that is outside the terms of this privacy statement. In signing up for an app or competition, you have entered into a contract with SPCK.

(f) In order to operate effectively, we collect certain information, such as IP address, browser, operating system, automatically from your computer or device when you use our websites and our apps. We have a legitimate interest in doing this in order to analyse usage of our website and apps, but we will also seek your consent using a pop-up on our website. The data we collect in this way is not used to identify you, nor is it stored with your personal details. It is kept only for statistical purposes and, we believe, has a minimal impact on your privacy. Nevertheless, to change what information we collect automatically, you can adjust your privacy settings within your device. See our cookie policy here.

(g) In order to monitor our marketing activities, we have approved the use of Tracking Technologies by the CommuniGator Limited, trading as Spotler,. Spotler employs the use of cookies, unique identifiers, web beacons and similar tracking technologies. Any data collected using these means is passed back to SPCK and recorded against your personal details. This helps us to send you promotional and fundraising material that is relevant to you and ensures that we use our resources efficiently. We believe that it has a minimal impact on your privacy, but if you wish to change what information we collect automatically, you can adjust your privacy settings within your device. For more information, see Spotler's cookie policy.

(h) As a charity and a publisher, SPCK has a legitimate interest in using publicly available information to identify people who show an interest in supporting organisations like SPCK, or who may be interested in a high-profile public association with SPCK as an author, as a donor or in some other capacity. This information may include, for example, media coverage and open postings on social media. If an individual enters into such a relationship with SPCK they will discuss with the Partnerships Director or their Commissioning Editor which data they are happy for SPCK to continue to hold.

(i) If you are an organisation such as a church or school wishing to set up a credit account we may search the files of credit reference agencies, who will record the search. Information may be shared with other credit grantors and used for making credit decisions, fraud prevention and occasionally for tracing debtors. in order to comply with our legal obligations under Charity Law and Financial Law, we will seek your consent to such searches in the course of your application for a credit account.

(j)

If you make a one-off or regular donation on the donation page of our website, this is handled by the CAF (Charities Aid Foundation). You will receive an automated reply thanking you for your gift, but we will only contact you directly about your donation if you have ticked the boxes on the CAF website to say you want to receive further information from us. You can donate through CAF anonymously if you prefer, in which case CAF will not pass your data on to us. If you opt-in to hearing from us further, you will be contacted with charity news and fundraising appeals. If you have provided an email address, we will use the CommuniGator Limited, trading as Spotler, to process your data for the purposes of fulfilling your request. Mailchimp may also process your personal data for their own legitimate interests, including but not limited to product development and business operations, and, in this capacity only, acts as the data controller.
If you make a donation at an event and complete a donation form, we will process and store your contact information and name. We believe we have a legitimate interest to contact you about charity news and fundraising appeals. You can opt-out of this communication at any time including by opting out on the response form at the event. We will only contact you by email if you have given consent on the form. If you request to be contacted by email, we will use CommuniGator Limited, trading as Spotler, to fulfil your request.
All donation information, including the amounts you give, will be stored on our database, so that we can make appropriate financial records and checks which we are required to do by our regulator, the Charity Commission, and by HMRC.
Where you leave a legacy to SPCK, we will retain details of that gift so that we can administer the funds in accordance with your wishes and to ensure that we recognise it for accounting purposes where appropriate. We retain such details for at least seven years in order to comply with our legal obligations under Charity Law and Financial Law. We will also retain your details if you inform us during your lifetime that you have pledged a legacy to SPCK, thereby indicating that you wish us to be aware of the legacy and consent to us retaining that data.
If you indicate an interest in membership of SPCK, we have your consent to process your data and will retain that data for a period of 1 year and may contact you from time to time during that period to see whether you wish to pursue membership. Thereafter we will delete your data.
If you become a member of SPCK, or set up a regular donation, we process your data in order to administer this gift. If you are a member, we will contact you once a year as part of our membership renewal process and once a year to send you notice of the AGM (which our constitution obliges us to do to, if you live in the British Isles, at your last known address, not less than 21 days before the meeting) at which members are entitled to vote. We send members marketing material from SPCK Publishing and fundraising appeals and other information throughout the year about our charitable work and programmes. However, you are not obliged to receive this information and you can manage your mailing preferences on our website – here or by contacting us by phone or post.

(k) If you contact us via one of the feedback forms on one of our websites, you give us your consent to retain your data for as long as we need to process your feedback.

(l) If you apply for a job, you consent to us holding the information you have supplied to us for a time in order to process your application. We will not hold your data longer than is necessary for fair consideration of your application. If we interview you, we are likely to hold your data for up to six months.

(m) If you have submitted a book idea, you give us your consent to retain your proposal and personal details. If your submission is initially unsuccessful, we may still hold your data for up to three years after you first approach us in case of query or the opportunity arises to consider the idea again.

(n) If you become an author we will retain all the personal information, including your bank details, address and biographical details necessary in order to promote your book and for as long as we pay you or your estate royalties, according to your contract with SPCK.

(o) Interns and volunteers enter into a contract with SPCK. We will retain the personal data of interns and volunteers for up to six months after the period of their work placement with us, unless specifically requested by the intern or volunteer to maintain files on them for the purposes of supplying employer references in the future.

(p) Casual workers, freelancers or employees of SPCK will have their data processed in accordance with the terms of their contract with SPCK and SPCK’s internal policies

(q) If you fill in one of our survey forms on one of our websites or via social media, you give us your consent to retain your data for as long as we need to process your feedback.

4. Do you process data about my philosophical and religious beliefs?

Some of the information we hold about you might reveal your philosophical or religious beliefs. This is known as a ‘special category’ of personal data. For example, the fact of your interest in SPCK might be taken to imply that you are of the Christian faith, or you may have informed us of your denomination, or that you are ordained. We have safeguards in place to process this type of data appropriately. For example, we use industry-recommended access control, encryption, firewalls and virus protection. Where you have given us explicit consent to the processing of categories of personal data relating to your philosophical or religious beliefs, for example, where you have supplied us with information about your churchmanship or affiliations and have asked to be kept up to date on SPCKs endeavours in those areas, we will process this data for that purpose only.

5. Information about other people.

If you provide information to us about any person other than yourself, such as people on whose behalf you are enquiring or placing an order, you must ensure that they understand how their information will be used and that they have given their permission for you to disclose it to us and for you to allow us, and our service providers, to use it.

6. In all cases where we hold your data.

You may change your preferences or opt-out of communications at any time by:

Clicking the unsubscribe link on the bottom of any e-newsletter. This will unsubscribe you from that particular newsletter.
Using our Update My Preferences Page.
Emailing us on contact@spck.org.uk.
Writing to us at 36 Causton Street, London SW1P 4ST
Phoning us on 020 7592 3900

7. For how long will SPCK hold my data?

We will hold all transactional data for at least 7 years after the transaction to fulfil the requirements of Charity and Financial Law. If you continue to have a relationship with us (defined as having some kind of interaction with us in the past 3 years) we will continue to hold all your data to the extent it is necessary for us to manage your relationship with SPCK. For all other purposes, we keep data no longer than is necessary for the purposes of processing it.

8. Where is my data stored?

SPCK and the third party data processors who handle your data on our behalf may store your data outside the European Economic Area. Where possible we ensure that these third parties are certified by the EU-US Privacy Shield, but it may be that these processors need to transfer data to other countries in which their sub-processors operate. If this is the case, we make sure that they always do this in accordance with the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation.

9. How safe is my data?

We work hard to ensure that sending your personal data over the internet (e.g. your credit card details and your postal address when you buy a book) is completely secure and use SSL certified processes but, as with any organisation operating over the internet, we can’t guarantee the security of your data while it’s in transit, so any data you send is at your own risk. We have procedures and security features in place to keep your data secure once we receive it. For example, we only engage third parties which provide sufficient guarantees that any personal data will be processed in a manner which complies with data protection law, and we use industry-recommended access control, encryption, firewalls and virus protection.

10. With whom will my data be shared?

We will not pass your information on to third parties for their own marketing purposes. Some third party data processors will use their data for their own legitimate interests, including but not limited to product development and business operations.

Your data may be handled by third parties acting on our behalf such as mailing houses who are helping us to keep in touch with you, merchant services or fulfilment companies, e-book publishers, donation processors, payment processors and cloud data storage providers. These data processing partners are also bound by Data Protection laws and will store your data carefully while it is needed and not hold it any longer than is absolutely necessary. We have assessed these suppliers in relation to their use of personal data on our behalf, and have contracts in place with them to set out adequate contractual obligations to ensure proper management of your personal data, and to prohibit transfers outside the UK.

If you go to another website or social media platform which you have linked to from our sites or our apps, read the privacy policy on that website or platform to find out what it does with your information. We do not provide those third parties with any of your personal data.

We will also comply with legal requests where disclosure is required or permitted by law (for example to government bodies for tax purposes or law enforcement agencies for the prevention and detection of crime, subject to such bodies providing us with an appropriate request) or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use or terms and conditions of supply and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of SPCK, our customers, or others.

If you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content to or anywhere on the SPCK website or via any of our apps, or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on any SPCK service, we may use your personal data to stop such behaviour. Where SPCK reasonably believes that you are or may be in breach of any of the laws of England and Wales (or the law of Scotland if applicable) (e.g. because content you have posted may be defamatory), we may use your personal data where we consider it appropriate to do so, to inform relevant third parties such as your employer, internet provider or law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour. We may disclose your personal information to third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation.

11. What if I don’t want to share my data in this way?

If you are a consumer purchasing SPCK products and services, our merchant services provider will process your payment card and address details in order to process your payment and deliver your products and services. Both guests and account holders will receive marketing emails from the SPCK Group unless they opt out. You can update your preferences here.

If you wish to make an anonymous donation you can send a cheque with no other identifying information payable to SPCK to SPCK, 36, Causton Street, London SW1P 4ST. We will need to hold a record of your name and the donation for financial reasons and because we are required to by charity law and money laundering regulations but we will not store any other personal data. Alternatively, you can use the CAF Widget on the SPCK Website spck.org.uk/support-spck/donate/ and tick the box to ensure your donation is anonymous.

12. How do I know what data you have stored about me?

You can ask us to disclose what personal data we hold about you and you may ask us to change what we keep if it is not up to date or accurate.

13. What should I do if I’m not happy with the way you’ve collected, stored and used my data?

You have a right to withdraw your consent for us to store your personal data or keep in touch for marketing purposes at any time.

You are also entitled to ask us to restrict our processing of your personal data. For example, where you are concerned about the accuracy of the data or the purposes for which we are using that data.

You may request that we erase all the data that we hold relating to you. Where you have supplied data to us on the basis of consent, you may withdraw that consent; or if your personal data is no longer necessary for us to process, you may inform us of this. However, we will still hold any data which we are required to hold for legal and tax purposes, or in order to fulfil your transaction.

Where we process your personal data for our legitimate interests, then you may ask us to stop such processing.

If you have any complaints about the way we have handled your data please see our fundraising complaints policy or customer services complaints policy. You may also make a complaint about how we have processed your personal data to the Information Commissioner here in the UK.

14. How do I update the data you hold on me?

Email contact@spck.org.uk

You may write to us at SPCK, 36, Causton Street, London SW1P 4ST.

or phone 020 7592 3900

15. How can I be sure this is notice is up-to-date?

This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time, so you may wish to check it each time you submit personal information to SPCK. This most recent revision was made on 2 August 2021. If material changes are made to the Privacy Policy we will notify you by placing a prominent notice on the SPCK website. www.spckpublishing.co.uk.