With The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into effect soon, churches across the country are getting themselves ready. If your church is not yet GDPR ready, iKnow Church have created free resources for you to use to prepare. You can find these GDPR resources here: www.gdprforchurches.org.uk
The new GDPR regulation will affect all organisations, including churches, that store personal information about individuals. This regulation is designed to give individuals more rights when it comes to how their information is gathered, stored and used. This regulation is a new legal framework from the European Union and won’t be affected by the UK leaving the EU. Every organisation in the UK will need to be GDPR compliant by the 25th of May.
The GDPR aims to ensure an individual’s right to make sure their data is held securely, correctly, and in a manner which is easily accessible. For churches still using paper-based systems, keeping data stored securely whilst making sure that it is easily accessible can be an almost impossible task, especially if an individual were to request all data held on them via email.
Should an individual request their data from the church electronically (such as by email), the information must also be supplied to them electronically within 30 days of the request, in accordance to the new GDPR regulations. If your church has been and is relying on paper-based databases, supplying the information could result in painstaking hours of transferring data across to an electronic form. Most churches simply do not have the human resources needed for such a task, it is important therefore that every church should be already using, or looking into the use of an electronic church database system, such as iKnow Church.
The team at iKnow Church have been planning for GDPR for quite some time now, and have developed tools within the iKnow Church database system to help churches ensure compliance with the GDPR legislation.
Moving from paper-based database systems, to a secure, online, cloud-based system has many benefits and will continue to do so as data protection rights for individuals become more prevalent in our society. As the population continues to grow in its online usage, investing into this technological future is something that every church should be doing.
With the iKnow Church database system, all a person's information can be stored in one place, providing easy access. From a GDPR perspective, this makes compliance with regulations manageable and straightforward should an individual request their information. Having data stored electronically in one database system that is specifically tailored for churches, rather than several paper-based systems, or several spreadsheet systems, will ultimately save time and money for many churches as GDPR comes into effect, and as it develops further in the future.
For further information on getting your church GDPR ready, or how iKnow Church can help you with GDPR compliance, contact a member of the iKnow Church team. We are ready to assist you with your queries.
You can call us on 0121 651 1125, or email hello@iknowchurch.co.uk. You can also find out more about GDPR on our dedicated GDPR website: www.gdprforchurches.org.uk
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