Last updated: November 2026
Who we are
This website is run by Smithton & Culloden Free Church (known as Smithton Church), Murray Road, Smithton, Inverness, IV2 7YU. We are a Scottish Charity (SC012271) and a congregation of the Free Church of Scotland. We are responsible for the personal information collected through this website.
If you have any questions about this policy or how we use your information, please contact the church office at office@smithtonchurch.com or on 01463 793191.
What we collect
You can browse this website without telling us who you are. We collect two kinds of information: anonymous statistics about how the website is used (see Website statistics below), and the details you give us if you choose to send us a message using the contact form. The form asks for:
- your first and last name
- your email address
- the subject and content of your message
Please don’t include sensitive personal information (for example about your health) in a message unless you need to. If you do, we will treat it with particular care and only use it to respond to you.
How we use it
We use the details you send only to read and reply to your message, and to follow up your enquiry (for example about booking the conferencing venue). We will not add you to a mailing list, and we never sell or share your information for marketing.
Our lawful basis for this is our legitimate interest in responding to people who contact us. Where your message tells us about your religious beliefs, we process this as a not-for-profit religious body, only in connection with our work and in replying to you.
Who can see it
Your message is stored securely and can only be read by the church office staff.
We use trusted service providers to run the website, who handle information on our behalf:
- Vercel, which hosts the website
- Supabase, which stores contact form messages, website statistics and website files
- Resend, which sends the email notifications of new messages
Some of these providers may store or process information outside the UK. Where they do, appropriate safeguards are in place, such as the UK’s approved data protection contract terms.
How long we keep it
We keep messages only for as long as we need them to deal with your enquiry. We review them regularly and delete them when they are no longer needed.
Website statistics don’t identify you, so we keep them to see how the website is used over the years.
To protect the website from misuse, such as floods of messages or repeated attempts to sign in, we briefly keep a scrambled code made from the internet address of anyone sending a message, signing in or using the website. The code can’t be turned back into the address, and it’s deleted within two days.
Website statistics
To understand how the website is used, so that we can improve it, the website keeps its own statistics. We record which pages are visited, how long people spend on them and how far down they scroll, which links and buttons are pressed and where on the page people click or tap, whether a message was sent with the contact form (the message itself is kept separately, as described above), which sermons are played and how far through, what is searched for in the sermon archive, addresses that couldn’t be found, the website or link that brought someone here, the type of device, browser and screen size, and the approximate town and country (worked out from the internet connection when the page is requested; we don’t store IP addresses).
We don’t use these statistics to find out who you are, we don’t combine them with other information about you, and we never share or sell them. They are kept by us, not by an advertising or analytics company. We use them on the basis of our legitimate interest in running and improving the website.
You can choose not to be counted at any time with the button below. It applies to the browser and device you’re using, so press it on each one you use.
Cookies
This website does not use advertising cookies or anything that follows you around other websites. The website sets these cookies itself:
- sc_v (1 year): a random number so our statistics can tell a returning visitor from a new one. It doesn’t contain anything about you.
- sc_s (30 minutes): groups the pages you look at in one visit.
- sc_consent (1 year): remembers that you’ve asked not to be counted.
- sc_admin and a sign-in cookie: only for people who look after the website, so their own visits aren’t counted and they can use its admin area.
Some pages include content from other services, which may set their own cookies or collect information:
- YouTube: sermon videos use YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode, and the video only loads when you press play. Video preview pictures are loaded from YouTube.
- Google Maps: the map on the home page is provided by Google.
- Our live stream: the player on the Live Services page is provided by our streaming service, whose privacy policy can be found here: stream.rossmackenzie.co.uk/privacy.html (opens in a new tab).
Links to other websites, such as ChurchSuite, our online giving page and the Free Church of Scotland, are covered by those websites’ own privacy notices.
Your rights
You have the right to:
- ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you
- ask us to correct anything that is wrong
- ask us to delete your information
- object to how we use it, or ask us to limit how we use it
To do any of these, contact the church office at office@smithtonchurch.com. We will reply within one month.
You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk (opens in a new tab)).
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The date at the top shows when it was last changed.