Privacy Policy | Church Near Me

Saved churches and comparison

Choosing Save church stores up to three church identifiers in this browser’s local storage. No account is required, and the list stays here until you remove it or clear browser data. Opening a comparison sends those identifiers to the directory to retrieve current listing information. If you share the comparison link, its recipient can see the church selections. Use Clear saved churches on the comparison page to remove the stored list. If storage is blocked, the site explains that the selection will not persist.

Church-team accounts and updates

Invited editors and administrators have accounts containing their email, assigned churches, role-verification notes, drafts and review history. Sign-in codes are stored as hashes, work once and expire after 48 hours. A necessary HttpOnly session cookie keeps you signed in for seven days; signing out revokes that session. Administrators can revoke editor access and all associated codes and sessions.

Account information and unpublished updates are accessible to authorised directory administrators and the relevant editor. Public browsing does not require an account. To request an account correction, export or deletion, contact the directory. We keep active account details while access is needed and retain editorial review records to support the accuracy of published listings. Expired sign-in records are cleared during subsequent sign-ins.

Partner link reporting

For active approved campaigns, we count opens of labelled placement links by UTC date, partner, placement and city. This aggregate table does not store IP addresses, browser identifiers, cookies or individual browsing histories. Recognisable automated traffic is excluded, but repeated and automated requests can still affect totals. These counts do not measure unique people or donations. Hosting providers can separately process network request information.

Location and maps

When you search by postcode, your browser sends that postcode to postcodes.io to look up its coordinates. If you choose device location, your browser asks permission first. Coordinates are sent to Church Near Me’s nearby-search API to calculate distances. The nearby tool does not save a location history in the directory or add new coordinates to the page address.

These are network requests, so service and hosting providers can process request information. A postcode location is approximate; it is not an exact household location. You can search by church name or town without using device location or the postcode distance lookup.

Interactive maps load from Google Maps or OpenStreetMap only when you ask to see them. Opening a map or following an external link also sends a request to that provider. Changing text size saves your preference in your browser’s local storage.

Listing updates and website feedback

The public correction, partnership and feedback forms prepare an email for you to review and send. Their contents are not submitted to a website database. When you send the email, the message and your sending address reach our mailbox and can be used to respond and check your request. Review or download a message before closing the page; unfinished form entries are not deliberately saved by this website.

1. Who We Are

Church Near Me is a free public website that helps people find Christian churches in the United Kingdom. For privacy requests we are the data controller of information collected on this site. Contact hello@churchnearme.org.uk.

We are the data controller for information collected on this website.

2. What Data We Collect

We collect the following data when you use this website:

Usage data — network requests may include pages visited, browser type, IP address and referring URL, processed by our hosting provider. Do not include private information in search queries.
Contact form submissions — name, email address, message content.

We do not use third-party tracking cookies or advertising networks. We do not sell personal data to any third party.

3. How We Use Your Data

To operate and improve the Church Near Me directory.
To respond to enquiries submitted via the contact form.

4. Legal Basis

We process data on the basis of legitimate interests (operating and improving the service) and contract (responding to enquiries).

5. Your Rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to access, correct, or delete data we hold about you. To exercise these rights, contact us at hello@churchnearme.org.uk.

6. Retention

Enquiry messages are reviewed for deletion after 12 months unless needed for an ongoing request or publication record. Church-team account and editorial records are described above. Hosting request records are handled under the provider’s configured retention; we do not promise that all infrastructure records are anonymised.

7. Contact

Questions about this policy: hello@churchnearme.org.uk