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Privacy Policy

This policy explains what personal information Bestway International Christian Centre collects through this website, why we collect it, how we look after it, and the choices and rights you have. We have tried to keep it short and in plain English.

1. Who we are

This website is run by Bestway International Christian Centre (“BICC”, “we”, “us”), a registered charity in England and Wales (no. 1138890), of 11-14 Graces Mews, Camberwell, London SE5 8JF. We are responsible for the personal information collected through this website and decide how it is used.

If you have any question about this policy or your information, email office@bestway.org.uk or call +44 20 7277 1777.

Our branches in Ireland, the USA and Nigeria run their own websites, which have their own privacy policies.

2. What we collect and why

We only collect what you choose to give us, plus a small amount of technical information needed to run the site safely.

  • Contact form: your name, email address, subject and message, so that we can reply to you. We do this because it is in our legitimate interests to answer people who contact us.
  • Plan Your Visit form: your name, email address, phone number (optional), the branch and Sunday you plan to visit, how many people are coming, whether you are bringing children, and anything else you tell us. We use this to welcome you and prepare for your visit. If you tell us about access needs or other health matters, we use that only to help you, and only because you chose to share it.
  • Share Your Story (testimonies): your name, email address, phone number (optional), branch, your story, and whether you agree to it being shared. We only publish a testimony with your consent, showing your first name, your branch and a photo only if you send one and agree. We may shorten it, but we check the wording with you first. You can ask us to remove it at any time, and we will take it down straight away.
  • Prayer requests: see
    section 3
    .
  • Newsletter sign-up: your email address, so that we can send you monthly news, event updates and encouragement. We do this with your consent. We send you an email to confirm your address first, and you can withdraw your consent at any time with the unsubscribe link in any newsletter, or by emailing us.
  • Emails and calls: if you contact us directly, we keep what you send so that we can help you.
  • Technical information: like most websites, our server records basic details such as your IP address, browser type and the pages requested. We use these only to keep the site secure and working, which is in our legitimate interests. Repeated failed log-in attempts to the website’s admin area are recorded and blocked.

Giving. This website shows bank details for giving by bank transfer. We do not take card payments on the site, so we never see your card details. When you give, your bank passes us your name and payment reference. If you make a Gift Aid declaration, we keep it, and the related giving records, for as long as HM Revenue & Customs requires (at least six years), because the law requires us to.

3. Prayer requests

When you send a prayer request through our website, we collect the details you choose to give us: your request, its category, and, if you provide them, your name and email address. Your name and email are optional, so you can send a request anonymously.

We use this information only to pray for you and, if you have given your email address, to follow up with you. Your request is stored securely on our website and emailed to our pastoral prayer team. Only church leaders responsible for pastoral care can see it. If you tick “Keep this prayer request strictly confidential”, it stays within the pastoral team and is never shared more widely, for example in prayer meetings.

A prayer request may include sensitive information, such as details about your health or your faith. By sending it, you give us your explicit consent to use it as described here. We keep prayer requests for 12 months and then delete them automatically. You can ask us to see, correct or delete your request at any time by emailing office@bestway.org.uk.

4. Cookies and embedded content

Cookies are small files that a website stores on your device. When you first visit, our cookie banner asks which cookies you are happy for us to use. You can change your choice at any time with the cookie settings button at the bottom of the page.

  • Necessary cookies make the site work and remember your cookie choice. They cannot be switched off.
  • Analytics cookies: we do not currently use any. If we add a tool such as Google Analytics to understand how the site is used, it will only run if you allow analytics cookies in the banner. Our cookie banner tells Google tools to wait for your consent (Google Consent Mode).

Some pages show content from other services. When that content loads, the service receives your IP address and may set its own cookies, under its own privacy policy:

  • YouTube (Google) plays our sermons, Shorts and live streams. Sermon videos only load when you press play, and every video uses YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode, which does not set YouTube cookies until you play a video. On the Watch Live page, a live service starts playing automatically while we are live.
  • Google Maps shows the location of our branches.
  • Google Fonts provides the typefaces used on the site.

Links to our Facebook, Instagram and YouTube pages take you to those sites, where their own privacy policies apply.

5. Who we share it with

We never sell your personal information or share it for marketing. We only share it:

  • within BICC, with the church leaders, pastors and volunteers who need it to help you (for example, the welcome team for a planned visit);
  • with organisations that provide services to us and only act on our instructions: our website hosting company; Google, which delivers our email through Google Workspace and provides the YouTube, Maps and Fonts services described above; and MailerLite, which sends our newsletter;
  • where the law requires it, or where we believe someone is at risk of serious harm and we need to share information with the appropriate authorities to protect them, in line with our safeguarding responsibilities.

Outside the UK. Google may process information in other countries, including the USA, and MailerLite stores newsletter subscribers in the European Union. Where information leaves the UK, the transfer is protected by UK adequacy regulations or by approved data protection contracts.

6. How long we keep it

  • Contact and Plan Your Visit messages: 12 months, then deleted automatically.
  • Share Your Story submissions: 12 months, then deleted automatically. A testimony we publish with your consent stays on the website until you ask us to remove it.
  • Prayer requests: 12 months, then deleted automatically.
  • Newsletter sign-ups: until you unsubscribe.
  • Email delivery records: 14 days.
  • Gift Aid declarations and giving records: at least six years, as HM Revenue & Customs requires.

7. Keeping it safe

The website uses a secure (HTTPS) connection. Messages and requests are stored on our website and can only be seen by authorised people using their own log-ins. We limit access to those who need it and protect the admin area against password guessing. No system is completely secure, but we take care to protect your information and will act quickly if something goes wrong.

8. Your rights

Under UK data protection law, you have the right to:

  • ask for a copy of the information we hold about you;
  • ask us to correct anything that is wrong or incomplete;
  • ask us to delete your information;
  • ask us to limit how we use it, or object to us using it;
  • ask for your information in a format you can take elsewhere;
  • withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on it (for example for the newsletter or a prayer request).

To use any of these rights, email office@bestway.org.uk. It is free, and we will reply within one month.

9. Children

Our website is meant for adults and families. We do not knowingly collect personal information online from children under 13. If a child has sent us their details, please contact us and we will delete them. The Plan Your Visit form only asks parents whether they are bringing children, not for children’s details.

10. Concerns and complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please contact us first and we will do our best to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time, for example if we add new features to the website. The date below shows when it last changed.

Last updated: 7 October 2026