Purpose

Willow Creek Community Church (“Willow Creek”), recognizes that an individual’s privacy is very important to them and that they have a right to control their personal information. Willow Creek acknowledges that when an individual provides personal information about themselves to another party it is an act of trust. In response, Willow Creek takes the process of upholding an individual’s privacy very seriously. Unless an individual gives Willow Creek explicit consent to act otherwise, the following policy will govern how Willow Creek handles an individual’s personal information and safeguards their privacy.

Scope

The principles contained in this privacy document apply to all personal information collected or submitted to Willow Creek.

1. What information of yours does Willow Creek collect?

Willow Creek collects two different types of information. One type is voluntary information, which you provide, such as registration information for events, membership information, or shipping and billing information. The other type of information Willow Creek collects is user information provided by your computer each time you visit this site, such as IP address, browser. The information that Willow Creek collects helps us to provide information and service to you. We may combine information from other sources with the information that we collect.

2. What does Willow Creek do with the information that is collected?

Any information that you provide to Willow Creek or that is obtained through this web site may be used for church purposes. WCCC will not sell, rent or lease your personal information to commercial entities. Willow Creek will not disclose your name, address, e-mail address or phone number without your express consent, unless disclosure is necessary to comply with laws or relevant legal proceedings.

Willow Creek may offer services to you such as chat rooms, message boards, or other similar discussion forums. Please be aware that any information you divulge in these arenas is deemed public information and is not protected.

3. What are “cookies” and how does Willow Creek use them?

Cookies are information that a web site transfers to an individual’s PC for record-keeping purposes (e.g., if you are a Wall Street Journal Interactive user, a cookie on your PC allows you to go directly to the WSJ instead of having to give your user name and password each time). Cookies can save your preferences when you are at a site. The use of cookies is an industry standard and most major web sites use them.

Willow Creek may use cookies to help us see which areas of our web site are more popular, which are not, how they are being used so that we can improve and update our web site to more accurately meet the needs of our users. At some point in the future, if Willow Creek decides to offer personalized services to its users, we will use cookies to make that personalization and customization of the Willow Creek web site possible.

Most browsers (Safari, Google Chrome, Explorer, Firefox) are initially set up to accept cookies. You can reset your browser to either refuse all cookies or to notify you when you are receiving a cookie and allow you to decide whether or not to accept it.

We do not use cookies to obtain any personal information about you before or after you leave the Willow Creek sites.

4. How does linking to other sites affect my privacy protections?

As a courtesy, Willow Creek may provide links to other sites that are neither owned nor controlled by Willow Creek. Some of these sites may use the Willow Creek logo. These third party sites, however, are NOT subject to or bound by the Willow Creek Privacy Policy. Such third party sites may or may not have their own privacy policies and may or may not collect personal information from you or place cookies on your browser. Willow Creek is not responsible for the privacy policies or any information collection practices of these sites or any damages resulting therefrom.

5. What type of security procedures are in place to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of your information?

The security of the information that you provide to us is very important to us. Consequently, we have taken several measures to protect your information. All transactions involving sensitive information, such as your credit/debit card number and expiration date, are conducted using a SSL (Secure Socket Layer) connection. This connection provides increased security to the information as it is transmitted to our web site.

6. How does Willow Creek protect the privacy of children?

Willow Creek encourages parents and guardians to spend time with their children online. No information should be submitted to or posted on Willow Creek’s web site by users 13 years old and younger without the consent of their parent or guardian. Unless otherwise disclosed during collection, Willow Creek will not provide any personally identifying information, regardless of its source, to any third party for any purpose whatsoever for our users 13 years and younger. If any services or features on the site require registration, a user 13 years old and younger will be required to provide the email of the parent or guardian which will allow us to notify that person that the child has registered for a service or feature. Parental or guardian consent will consist of an email from that person to Willow Creek stating that they are aware that the child is using the web site. Identifying a user as 13 or under is not easy and Willow Creek will not be held responsible for anyone misrepresenting as over 13 when in fact they are not.

7. Willow Creek reserves the right to change or amend this policy.

Willow Creek reserves the right to change, amend, or restate this policy.

8. Your affirmative consent to Willow Creek’s collection and use of personally identifiable information.

By using Willow Creek’s website, you are giving us your express consent to use all the information that we collect about you in the manner described in this policy. This includes the release of such information to third parties as described above.

9. Questions or Concerns?

If you have questions or concerns about this privacy policy, or would like your data removed from our internal platforms please contact our Policy Officer at: PolicyOfficer@Willowcreek.org