SIM UK, also known as Serving In Mission or SIM International UK, attaches great importance to the security and protection of personal information shared with us.
We are deeply committed to the security of all personal information that we process, treating it confidentially and respectfully, complying with the UK Data Protection Act (2018) and the EU General Data Protection Regulations. You can exercise your rights, including the changing or deletion of your details, at any time.
We are a registered charity in England and Wales (charity number 219763) and in Scotland (charity number SCO40432). We are a signatory to the global SIM International Mission Agreement.
For further information or questions relating to data protection and SIM UK, please email [email protected] or ring 01223 788288.
How we use your information
This Privacy Statement tells you what to expect us at Serving In Mission UK (SIM UK) to do with your personal information when you make contact with us or use one of our services. Most of the personal information we process is provided directly by you because you have directly engaged with us.
This may be because:
- You sent us an enquiry, complaint, information request or job application or signed up for an event or activity that we organised. This may be as an individual or on behalf of a church or another organisation or group
- You are a supporter (by prayer, financial giving, magazine subscription, or other ways)
- You work with us (as an employee, member or associate, volunteer)
- You are sharing specific information required by us to process your associate or membership application
- You are a supplier or a contractor, or have a stated interest in our work
We also gain indirect personal information in the following scenarios:
- visitors to our website (see our Cookie Policy)
- you support one of our mission workers
- you support SIM UK
- one of our workers lists you as an emergency contact or referee
Our processing purposes
As a data controller, we are extremely careful with how we collect, keep and process your personal information. We process data under several different legal bases depending on the purpose for the information.
- To keep you informed about our work and ministries around the world, for prayer and encouragement
- To highlight relevant events or activities that we’ve organised and that we think you may be interested in
- To provide you with requested resources or receipts and/or acknowledgements for donations
- To track your engagement with us as a worker, volunteer, subscriber, supporter, supplier/contractor or someone else with a stated interest in our work
- To comply with our legal obligations
To process data relating to our employees, members and associates, event or activity attendees, those who have requested resources or materials, or to pay invoices/expenses/other authorised amounts, we use a contractual basis.
To send financial acknowledgements or any information relating to your subscription of our prayer mailings, magazines, resources, events or activities that you might be interested in, we rely on legitimate interests as a lawful basis. This involves balancing the interests of SIM UK against your rights and freedoms with consideration for the reasonable and appropriate expectations about the use of your data.
For all our email marketing communications – our weekly prayer emails, magazines or newsletters, event or activity invitations – we rely on consent. You have the option in every email to opt-out or alter your communication preferences.
We are legally obligated to process personal information relating to financial activities and Gift Aid, contracts or agreements with suppliers/third parties, Companies House information and returns, and for Health and Safety records. Therefore we use compliance
We will never share your details with third parties outside of our contractual relationships, including our data processors or other SIM entities.
Information you give us directly:
From signing up to engage with us
If you sign up to our mailing lists, an event or enter into a contract with SIM UK, we may ask you for the following data:
- Your contact information (title, names, email address and/or a phone number or a postal address)
- Your association with a church/group/organisation
- Your communication preferences
- Your areas of interest in our work
From our website
Our website at https://sim.co.uk is controlled by us, hosted in the UK. You can engage directly with us through signing up for specific mailings or events, donating to mission work, taking part in a quiz and filling out online application forms. One mailing list, Praying for Faithful Witness, is managed by SIM International based in the US. SIM International is also responsible for any sim.org email addresses.
We use a HTTPS secure server and have stringent security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of data under our control.
We will collect technical information depending on your browser settings, which may include your Internet Protocol (IP) address, type of device or browser or operating system, general location and date stamp. We use log files to track visitor trends across the website, so that we can improve visitor experience. Log files contain your IP address, which pages are visited, what search engine you came from and what device or system software you are using.
Like virtually all website, we use cookies on our website to make it faster and safer for you, and have a specific Cookie Policy. A cookie is a small file, typically a string of letters and numbers, that is downloaded to your device. It allows a website to recognise your device and respond to you as an individual, but it does not in any way give us access to your device or any personal information about you. We do recommend cookies are turned on, as it allows the website to store and retrieve data more effectively.
Although we try to exercise caution, we are not responsible for the content displayed on other websites that we might link to and recommend you read the privacy notices of those sites. Links to other websites are not endorsements, approval or agreement with any information or resources listed there.
Information you give us indirectly:
From other SIM entities
Your information may be shared with us from other global SIM entities if you give permission, or if you enter your personal data into SIM International controlled websites like https://www.sim.org/, through fundraising sites like JustGiving. We recommend that you check the privacy notices when you provide your personal data so that you understand what they will do with it and how that fits with your rights.
From public sources
We may use information available from public records or source, online or in print, to better understand our supporters, suppliers and others who engage with us. We do not use tracking services.
Special categories of data
Some types of personal information are more sensitive and are labelled by the Data Protection Act (2018) as such. This includes information on health or medical records, race and ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs and political opinions.
We only collect sensitive personal information where there is a clear reason for doing so. We will always make it clear to you what we are collecting, why we need it and gain consent where necessary. For example, we require health clearance for our workers during the application stage, so that we can care for our members and associates appropriately.
We may process the personal information of children under 18 years where they are part of a family unit, if we have consent of a parent or guardian.
How we keep your information safe
We are committed to keeping your personal information safe and secure. We have regular team trainings on our data protection policies and procedures, and SIM UK workers only have access to data they need for their specific roles.
Credit or debit card payments
If you use your credit or debit card to donate via our website or on the phone, we will ensure this is done securely. Once your transaction is completed, we will not store your full credit or debit card details. Our online transactions are managed by Trust Payments, which is compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
Sharing your information
SIM UK never sells or rents or leases personal data.
We may disclose your personal data to third party data processors. They have access to the personal data needed for their functions but may not use it for any other purposes. We require each of these third parties to comply with our instructions and relevant data protection laws, and will make sure that appropriate controls are in place. The third parties include:
- IT services – Akismet (spam filter), Foxhall Solutions Ltd (IT services), MailChimp (email marketing), ThankQ (CRM, donation handling), Tim Wakeling (sim.co.uk website developer and hosting)
- Professional services – Anthony Collins (solicitor), CPO (mail and distribution), Mark Mason Employment Law, Mazars (auditors), SIM International (hosting of sim.org email, sim.org website and IT systems, SIM International Personnel System (IPS), archives)
- Individual specialists under contract for medical and other personal support services
We may also disclose your personal data where we have a duty to comply with a legal obligation, or enforce or apply our rights, or to protect SIM UK in cases of suspected fraud or defamation.
Sharing your information over borders
Most data is processed fully within the UK, but some data may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA), for example if you sign up for SIM UK information or resources on the SIM International website or if you apply to work in a ministry outside the UK.
By giving us your personal information, you agree to this transfer or processing at a location outside the EEA.
How long we keep your personal information
We have a retention policy for each type of personal data that we collect. We will keep and store your personal data in our digital or offline systems for as long as is needed to fulfil the process for which we hold the data, or for as long as is required by law for the relevant activity.
Where your data is no longer required, we dispose of it in a secure manner.
If you enact your right to object to information and request that we stop sending you communications, we will keep the minimum amount of personal data needed to enable us to comply with your request not to be contacted by us.
If you exercise your right to erasure, we will delete all your personal data that we are not obliged to keep by law.
Data managed and stored by other SIM entities or partners
As mentioned in this privacy notice, some personal information is necessarily transferred to other SIM entities located elsewhere, in accordance with the terms of this privacy notice. However, the legal retention requirements for personal data on those systems may be different to those within the UK. The retention policy for SIM International systems in the US is available on the sim.org website.
Your rights and how you can exercise them
Your rights over your personal information, guarded by the Data Protection Act (2018), include:
- To be informed. This Privacy Notice on the website serves to that end.
- To have access. You can make a data subject access request to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you, and ask for details about the purposes for which we process your data.
- Rectification – to have the data held about to updated or amended if it is wrong, to change your communication preferences at any time, or to withdraw your consent to use of your personal data where we are relying on consent as the legal basis for processing it
- For erasure – you can ask us to remove your personal data from our records
- To restrict processing – you can ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data for or from specific purposes
- For data portability – you can request a portable copy of certain personal information where this is automatically processed
- To object – you can object to the processing of your data for marketing purposes
- For automated decision-making, or profiling – you can ask us to explain any automated processing we carry out and the impact of this on you
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us. We may ask for reasonable proof of identity before providing you with data or carrying out any of the actions associated with your rights.
Changes to this privacy notice
We reserve the right to make changes to the privacy notice and associated policies at any time. To see previous versions, please contact the Data Protection Officer.
This privacy notice was last updated on 12th April 2021.
How to contact us
For more information or questions about our privacy policy, you can email our Data Protection Officer at [email protected].
Post: Serving In Mission, Newmarket Road, Cambridge, CB5 8RS
Tel: 01223 788288
SIM International (UK). Registered in England No. 611250. Company Limited by Guarantee. Registered Charity No. 219763. OSCR No. SCO 40432.