Personal information connected with Baptisms. First Communions, Weddings and Receptions into the Catholic Church is stored in permanent written registers. Adults and children able to give informed consent* can access data of those under their protection. We occasionally receive requests to remove information from our registers; since they are a historical record of ceremonies which actually took place, we cannot remove the record of someone who no longer wishes to be regarded as a Catholic, although we can annotate their entry with a note to that effect. If proof is supplied that our records are historically inaccurate, the appropriate correction can be made.
*An adult can access their own record,, and a record of a child under 13 to whom they are parent or legal guardian. The access is granted by posting the required information to the address listed in the register, or by the adult showing personal ID to a parish officer. For children aged 13-17, and adults with learning difficulties, the data subject is assumed to be able to request access, and the parent/guardian assumed unable to gain access without the subjects explicit permission, unless evidence is provided that the data-subject is not yet competent to understand the relevant issues.
Information about current parishioners, employees of the parish, and members of the Deaf Pastoral Group is stored in a password-protected database. This is now held in a UK cloud service called ChurchSuite. They have their own detailed privacy policy. The parish of St Philip Evans will not disclose data from the pastoral database to any third party unless required to do so by UK or EU law. Parishioners may, however, opt-in to a scheme where any or all of landline, mobile phone, email or address may be made visible to other parishioners via ChurchSuite.
A small number of Parish Officers (e.g. priest, deacon, co-ordinator of each sacramental course or pastoral care group) will be granted full access to the contact details on the database . The database can also contain “pastoral notes” for a restricted audiences ( e.g. priest, deacon, and co-ordinator of the converts’ group only; deaf service officers only, etc.) where there is no need to share information more widely. On request, a person’s contact details may be restricted to such a pastoral role if there is concern about parish officers having wider access.
Many parish officers are given email accounts @sphilipevans.co.uk which are business accounts on Google Mail. Such officers are asked to use parish email rather than personal email for their parish-related work in order to provide an audit trail should the need arise. Some Google Servers are outside the European Economic Area, but we have opted into the model contracts Google provides to ensure compliance with European Union data protection laws.
St Philip Evans is part of the Archdiocese of Cardiff, which is a single Registered Charity , number 242380, with a board of trustees. The Diocesan Treasurer’s Office handles arrangements for processing of finance data ( Gift Aid, Standard Orders, Legacies) and the parish Gift Aid Administrator handles data according to their rules. Other Parish officers are only privy to the end-of-year reports and the transfer information which appears on monthly bank statements.
The Diocesan Office handles arrangements for clearance of volunteers needing a DBS-check to work with children or vulnerable adults. Records concerning applications or allegations are stored on parish premises in a locked filing cabinet to which the Parish Priest has no access; only the parish Safeguarding Officials operating at the direction of the diocesan Safeguarding Officer may access this. Our Parish officials are simply given a list of names of those cleared to work with children or vulnerable adults.