1. Purpose and scope
​
At the Lay Community of St Benedict (LCSB), we are committed to protecting personal information, and we take our responsibilities regarding the security of information very seriously. This notice explains who we are and who is responsible for your data, what personal data we collect about you, how and why we use it, who we may disclose it to and how we protect it. It also explains how long we retain your information, the legal bases for doing so, and your data protection rights.
‘Personal data’ means information that relates to you and allows us to identify you, either directly or in combination with other information that we may hold. We collect some personal data from you, for example, when you use our website, donate to us, register as a member or guest, participate in any of our events, or contact us.
​
2. Who is responsible for your data and our contact details
​
The LCSB is a lay-led, inter-generational and ecumenical community whose members meet and pray daily online, and gather physically in small local and regional groups, inspired by the Gospel. We are a registered charity and company limited by guarantee, number 04838564. Our registered office is 17 Edburton Avenue, Brighton, BN1 6EJ. We can be contacted via DPO@lcsb.uk or admin@lcsb.uk.
The LCSB is, through its Trustees, a data controller and is registered as such with the Information Commissioner’s Office UK (ICO). We must therefore process all personal data about you in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA), the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 (DUAA), the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), and any other relevant data protection legislation.
​
3. What personal data we collect, where from and when
We may collect and process the following categories of information about you, when you contact us or donate by post, telephone or via our website or when you register to participate in prayers, events or activities or to receive news updates, or when you become a member/are employed by the LCSB.
3.1 Name and contact details.
3.2 Gender, age, date of birth, marital status and nationality.
3.3 Information about your education/work history and professional qualifications.
3.4 Information about your family and any dependents.
3.5 Information about your current involvement in LCSB activities and events.
3.6 Financial information and details of any donations you have made to us in the past; this may include bank details. When you make a donation online, by phone, or otherwise make a payment to us, our authorised third‑party payment processors (such as Stripe and JustGiving) collect your payment information (eg name, sort code and account number, or credit card details including name, number, CVV code and expiry date). We do not retain full payment card or bank account details ourselves. We keep records of donations for accounting and legal purposes in line with statutory requirements, but payment details are processed securely by accredited third‑party providers.
3.7 Information obtained because of any background checks on members/employees.
3.8 CCTV recordings, videos and photographs.
3.9 Information we collect through your use of our website(s) such as IP addresses and other information collected using cookies; please see our separate Cookies Policy and Statement.
3.10 Social media. We may collect your posts and messages when you interact directly with the LCSB on social media. This information is collected when you use platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram or LinkedIn.
3.11 Recruitment. We collect personal data as part of our employee, contractor or volunteer processes. This information is collected when you apply for a job or for volunteering opportunities with the LCSB.
3.12 Special category data. We collect and use personal data that you provide to us, to contact you and inform you about our activities. We recognise that many (but not all) people contacting us hold religious beliefs and, as this is defined as a special category of personal data, we put in place procedures to ensure that additional security and access restrictions are applied to all the personal data the LCSB holds, including health data (if provided) in accordance with UK GDPR data processing principles and the Data Protection Act 2018. We may also hold information about your health and wellbeing, or, in the case of background checks, information about criminal records or proceedings.
3.13 Any other information that you choose to provide to us or that we are provided by others.
4. Why we collect your personal information and how we use it
​
4.1 Sharing or disclosing your information
4.1.1 The LCSB does not share your personal data with any other charity, public body or commercial organisation without your express or implied consent, or where there is a statutory obligation to do so. Each member or friend of LCSB who provides to LCSB personal data about himself or herself (or about family members for whom he or she has legal authority, eg parental responsibility for a child) consents (and confirms that each such family member consents) to the data being processed as described below.
4.1.2 We may disclose your personal information to third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share this information to comply with any legal obligations, or to enforce or apply any agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of the organisation, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of safeguarding or other statutory regulations we have to comply with.
4.2 We collect and use your personal data for the following purposes:
4.2.1 To contact members and friends of the LCSB and inform you about the LCSB’s activities and events.
We may send you communications by email or post, if you have consented that you are happy to receive these – for example, when you have donated or attended a talk or event and you have opted into receiving such communications - or where we have a legitimate interest in sending these communications. You can choose to opt out of receiving email communications at any time by clicking on the relevant unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email you may receive from us or by contacting us at dpo@lcsb.uk.
4.2.2 To manage your donations or to fundraise.
When you interact with us, we use your information to perform our services in relation to your donation. Under our lawful basis of legitimate interest, we may contact you by email. We will always give you the option of opting out from these emails.
4.2.3 To communicate with you and manage our relationship with you.
We may need to contact you by email and/or telephone for administrative or operational reasons – for example, to send you confirmation of your donation. We will also use your personal data if we contact you after you have sent us a request, filled in a web form through our website or contacted us on social media.
4.2.4 To manage our members, seekers, guests and visitors and any others participating in LCSB activities and events.
We need to keep some personal information about those who have joined, or are interested in joining the LCSB or participating in any of our activities or events, and will share your personal information with those organisations with whom we have reciprocal agreements for providing services for fulfilment purposes. This may, for example, be related to venue bookings.
4.2.5 To maintain and improve our own accounts, records and organisational processes, to fulfil our administrative purposes and protect our charitable interests.
The purposes for which we will use your information include accounting and audit, credit or other payment card verification, fraud screening, safety, safeguarding, security and legal purposes, statistical analysis, systems testing, maintenance and development.
​
5. Lawful basis for processing your personal data and your rights
​
5.1 The Data Protection Act 2018 and any subsequent legislation require organisations to consider the legal basis on which they process personal data. The LCSB will process personal data under the following lawful basis:
​
5.1.1 Agreement: where it is necessary for us to fulfil a contract with you: for example, when you participate in an event.
5.1.2 Legitimate interests: when it is in our legitimate interests to do so as part of our efforts to build long-term relationships with our members and friends. In such instances, we will send you communications and marketing material via post and email, unless you have told us you do not wish to receive these communications.
5.1.3 Consent:with your consent, we will send you emails or SMS/Whatsapp messages.
5.2 Your rights
The LCSB actively supports the principle of “fair and transparent” processing of your personal information. We support your rights in relation to your personal information under the Data Protection Act 2018, including the:
-
right to be informed (chiefly via this policy)
-
right of access
-
right to rectification
-
right to erasure
-
right to restrict processing
-
right to data portability
-
right to object
-
rights related to automated decision-making including profiling.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Data Protection Officer via email at DPO@lcsb.uk.
​
6. How long we keep your data for before disposing of it securely
​
In principle, the LCSB only keeps personal data for as long as needed to carry out each processing activity. We maintain data retention criteria to help us do this, taking account of our legal and accounting obligations, balancing this with what would be considered reasonable. The data retention/disposal criteria are set out in our Data Retention/Disposal Schedule.
We are required to keep details of financial transactions, including donations, for six years to meet accountancy and HMRC requirements. We will anonymise or delete personal data if, after a period of six years, we have not had any contact or communication from you (this will be measured over a rolling seven-year period) – subject to special circumstances concerning, for example, any legacies.
We may also be required to keep certain personal data for extended periods for HR or for safeguarding reasons.
​
7. Updates to our privacy notice
​
We will make changes to this privacy notice from time to time, as and when required, and we will publish any new version of this Privacy Notice on this page.
​
8. How to complain
​
If you have any concerns about our use of your personal data, you can make a complaint to us using the contact details at the top of this privacy notice.
​
If you remain unhappy with how we’ve used your data after raising a complaint with us, you can also complain to the ICO.
The ICO’s address:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
