PRIVACY POLICY

This Privacy Policy ("Privacy Policy") was last updated on October 17, 2016

Our Policy

This Privacy Policy sets forth the practices of General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (collectively referred to as, "GC Adventist," "we," "us" and/or "our") with respect to personal data ("Personally Identifiable Information," or "PII") and other information that is collected from Individuals; including Unions, Conferences, Missions and Churches (collectively referred to as "Participating Organizations") through various websites owned and operated by us. (General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Individuals who use our services, and Participating Organizations may be collectively referred to as "GC Adventist Church System").

This Privacy Policy describes the choices available to you regarding the use of your information, and how you access this information to update and correct it.

It is important to note that privacy practices of Participating Organizations may differ from those of General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. We are a separate entity from those that participate in our services and thus do not have control over their privacy practices. However, we do encourage Participating Organizations to follow our Privacy Policy and practices.

Information We Collect

We recognize the sensitive nature of your information. It is our highest priority to ensure the confidentiality of any information you provide and take a proactive approach in protecting your privacy.

Participating Organizations use services provided by us to connect with each other, look for employment and/or volunteer opportunities, manage their membership information and data, conduct financial transactions, and obtain and/or provide educational materials and services within the GC Adventist Church System (collectively referred to as "Services").

When using our Services, you and/or the Participating Organizations may provide us PII such as name, address, phone number, birthday, spousal and family information, educational history, employment information, and financial information.

Other Information: When you interact with our Services, we may receive and store information collected passively through various technologies used on our websites. This information is used to provide us with statistical information such as the number of visitors to a website(s), the number of visitor to each page of our Services. Other information collected may include IP Address, Browser Type, ISP, pages you visit, operating system, and date/time stamps. This information is merely statistical and not used to identify you.

In operating our Services as described above our third party partners and we use cookies and similar technologies. Our third party partners also use Local Storage (HTML5).

These technologies are used to provide additional functionality, analyze usage and behavior more accurately, temporarily store our pages and images, store content and preferences.

We also partner with third parties to either display advertising on our website or to manage our advertising on other sites. Our third party partner may use technologies such as cookies to gather information about your activities on this website and other sites in order to provide you advertising based upon your browsing activities and interests. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you interest-based ads, you may opt-out by clicking here (or if located in the European Union click here). Please note this does not opt you out of being served ads. You will continue to receive generic ads. Please visit your browser settings to manage your Local Storage (HTML5) preferences.

Our Use of your PII and Other Information

We use PII and other information to provide you with Services, send you updates, administer your account, communicate with you, enable you to connect with others, improve our Services, conduct research, understand our organization, send you valuable information and newsletters, list you in the members directory, and communicate with Individuals and members of Participating Organizations.

By voluntarily providing us with your information, you are consenting to our use of it in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You acknowledge and agree that your data may be transferred from your current location to our servers or its authorized third parties as described in this Privacy Policy. We will not share your information with anyone not described in this Privacy Policy unless your consent is obtained prior to doing so. This Privacy Policy also describes the choices available to you regarding our use of your information and how you can access and update it.

If you wish to opt-out of receiving newsletters, you may also opt-out of such communication by following the unsubscribe link included in the emails.

Sharing your Information

General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is comprised of many independent unions, which are regionally coordinated by the General Conference divisions. The Divisions have been established as regional offices of the General Conference serving a defined geographical area. We integrate and share your information with various unions to allow us to perform the various duties discussed above and provide you with valuable Services.

We may provide your information to third party services providers that help us with our business activities such as shipping, marketing and processing of credit cards. These companies are authorized to use your personal information only as necessary to provide these services to us.

If you are an denominational employee or member of an denominational organization, we may publish your profile in our directory so that other members can find you and communicate with you. If you believe that someone has created an unauthorized profile of you, please contact us using the email address provided below, please provide us with a brief explanation, where you found the profile, include your name and contact information.

We may disclose your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to (i) comply with a legal obligation such as to comply with a subpoena, or a similar legal process (ii) protect and defend the rights or property of The Seventh-day Adventist Church, (iii) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of the Services, visitors to our centers or the public, or (iv) protect against legal liability, (v) if the organization is involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of all or portion of its assets you will be notified with a notice on our website of any change in ownership or uses of your information, as well as any choices you may have.

Third Party Links

Our application may contain links to other websites or features that may connect with you other mobile applications within your device. Privacy practices of linked websites and mobile application may differ from ours. If you submit any personal information on these websites or applications, your information is governed by their privacy practices. We strongly request that you review the privacy policies of such websites before submitting any personal information.

Access

If your personal information changes, you no longer desire our Service, or wish to know whether we hold personal information about you, you may request, correct, update, amend, and delete such information by contacting us using the email address and/or address provided below. For changes on information pertaining membership information or to church treasury items, contact your local clerk, treasurer or pastor. In some instances, you may be provided with direct access to the portal in which your information is maintained; you may make changes as necessary if you already have access. If you do send us an inquiry directly, please include you name, your location, location of your church and name of your clerk and/or pastor including the nature your request. We will make all efforts to respond to your inquiry within a reasonable time.

Security

The security of your information is important to us. We follow generally accepted standards such as encryption to protect the personal information submitted to us.

Retention

We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as reasonably useful for other organizational purposes. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements.

Changes to this Privacy Statement

We may update this Privacy Statement to reflect changes to our information practices. If we make any material changes we will notify you prior to the change becoming effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.

If you have questions or complaints regarding our privacy policy or practices, please contact us at privacy@gc.adventist.org or at the address listed below. 

Contact Us

General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists 
Att:  Dept OGC 
12501 Old Columbia Pike 
Silver Spring, MD  20904

privacy@gc.adventist.org