Privacy Policy

Wesley Methodist Church Edmonton (“we”, “us”) respects your privacy. This policy explains what personal information we collect through this website, why we collect it, and the choices you have. We handle personal information in accordance with Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA).

Information we collect

We only collect information you choose to give us:

• Contact form — your first and last name, email address, optional phone number, and your message.
• Membership form — your full name, date of birth, email address, phone number and home address.
• Volunteer form — your full name, email address, phone number, the area you would like to help in, and an optional message.
• Event RSVPs — your full name, email address, phone number and address, along with the event you are attending.
• Donations — your name, email address, phone number and billing address, plus the amount, fund and frequency of your gift.
• Newsletter — your name and email address.
• Prayer requests — your request, and an optional name, email address and phone number. Requests are read only by our pastoral staff, or also by our confidential prayer team if you choose that option. They are never published or sent by email, and are linked to your contact record only if you give both a name and an email address.

We do not collect or store your card number, CVV or bank details. Card payments are handled entirely by Stripe on their own systems; we never see or hold your card information.

Member portal. If you sign in to the member portal we email you a one-time sign-in link; it only works for an email address the church already holds. The portal shows you the information we hold about you (your membership, event RSVPs, gifts and receipts) and lets you update your phone number and your email preferences.

Records kept by the church office. The church office also keeps records about the people it serves, built from what you tell us on the forms above and in person. They can include contact details, household, date of birth and address where you have given them, membership status, attendance, visits to the church, the groups and ministries you belong to, giving records, and notes made by pastoral staff. Access is limited to church staff according to the role they hold.

How we use your information

• To reply to enquiries you send us.
• To process your membership or RSVP request.
• To keep our member and visitor records, take attendance, and follow up with visitors, volunteers and prayer requests.
• To process donations and send you a giving receipt for tax purposes.
• To send you our newsletter, where you have asked to receive it.
• To send you messages from the church, by email or by text message, where you have asked for them or agreed to them.

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.

Service providers

We share information only with the providers needed to run this site. Each processes data on our behalf under their own privacy terms, and some store data outside Canada (primarily in the United States), where it may be subject to the laws of that country.

• Stripe — payment processing for donations.
• Resend — delivery of form notifications and giving receipts.
• Supabase — storage of the church’s records: messages, membership and the member directory, RSVPs, prayer requests, giving records and website statistics.
• Mailchimp — newsletter subscriber list.
• Twilio — delivery of text and WhatsApp messages, when the church sends them; your phone number and the message are shared with Twilio for that.
• Google Maps and YouTube — the church map and the sermon videos are embedded from Google and YouTube. Loading a page that shows one sends your IP address and browser details to them, and they may set their own cookies. Sermon videos use YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode.

How long we keep it

Donation records are retained as long as required by Canada Revenue Agency rules for charitable receipts. Membership and RSVP records are kept while they remain relevant to church administration. Newsletter subscriptions are kept until you unsubscribe. You may ask us to delete your information at any time, subject to those legal retention requirements.

Cookies and tracking

This site does not use advertising or analytics cookies. Your browser may store a small preference for light or dark display mode locally on your own device; that value never reaches our servers. Stripe sets cookies on its own checkout pages to prevent fraud, and Google and YouTube may set cookies when a map or video on a page is loaded.

To understand how the website is used, we count visits without cookies and without identifying anyone. For each page viewed we record the page address (without anything after the “?” except the campaign tags utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign, when a link carries them), the website that linked to it, and whether the device is a phone, tablet or computer. Visits on the same day are grouped using a code derived from a random value that is deleted every day. Your IP address is not stored, and once that day's value is deleted a visit can no longer be linked back to it or recognised on another day. If your browser sends a “Global Privacy Control” or “Do Not Track” signal, nothing is recorded at all. We also count when an action is completed on the site (for example a form sent or a gift made) and when someone follows a sermon link to YouTube, in the same way and with nothing that identifies you. These statistics are kept for about 13 months.

Your rights

You have the right to ask what personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected if it is wrong, to withdraw your consent, and to ask us to delete it. To make a request, or if you have a concern about how we have handled your information, contact us using the details below. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Security

We take reasonable steps to protect your information, including serving this site over HTTPS and limiting access to submitted records to those who need it for church administration. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Children

This site is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information without the consent of a parent or guardian. Where a child is registered for a ministry or event, we expect a parent or guardian to submit the form.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised.

Contact us

Wesley Methodist Church Edmonton
13535 122 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T5L 2V7, Canada
Phone: +1 587 336 1223
Email: WMethodistedm@gmail.com