Privacy Policy
In developing and maintaining the website for First Baptist Nashville, we go by an unofficial policy with respect to inclusion of personal information. We spell this out below both to make it clear and to invite discussion. This is a difficult issue to write about and we do not mean to come across as alarmist but in our role, we do have the responsibility to handle congregational information carefully.
Feel free to contact us with comments, questions or concerns.
We have several basic groups of people that might be listed or referred to; staff, adult members, youth and missionaries. Information of concern includes names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers and photos. Home addresses are never posted.
1. For staff, we list names, e-mail addresses, and office phone numbers. No home phones, etc. It is important that people be able to contact the staff and that access is all through the office.
2. For adult members, we often list names when they are a contact for some group or activity that we are covering on the website. We occasionally include e-mail addresses and phone numbers.
3. For youth and children, we generally do not list full names, but at most the first name and initial of the last name. We also do not list e-mail addresses or phone numbers. Photo captions do not include full names and often do not include names at all. This is more to protect them from the more dangerous types of people that can and do use the net to contact and take advantage of young people.
4. For missionaries, we are very careful about what, if anything, we list. Sometimes, missionaries are in countries where they would be in danger if it were known that they are 'missionaries' or even Christian. In some countries, it is actually illegal to be there as a Christian missionary and they could be imprisoned or deported. We don't post info, even names, emails or country, without the explicit permission of that missionary or from our staff person in charge of missions.
Some specific areas of our online functionality have additional guidelines.
1. First Baptist Nashville has a printed member and ministry directory with names, addresses, e-mail, etc which is only available to members and friends of First Baptist Nashville. It is periodically distributed in print at the church. To request a copy or to add your information to this directory contact the office. This directory is not available online.
2. Our E-mail Lists have additional concerns since sensitive information is often shared. The specific policies and procedures we follow are documented there.
When using photos of events, members, etc online, either directly on the website or in our
photo albums we use the following guidelines.Including photos in our site is a privilege for us, and we intend to respect and honor it.
Photos are almost always of people in public spaces, at public events.We try not to post anything that would be embarrassing, objectionable or hurtful to anyone in the photo. If we know someone is shy about such things, we ask them before posting the photo.
Applying other parts of our general privacy policy, we don't put full names of children or youth as captions with photos, and we minimize how often we use full names of adults.
We will gladly provide credit for who took a particular photo if desired by the photographer, and we would certainly honor any copyright wishes or restrictions.
We will gladly remove any photo immediately upon request.
In any case, if you see a photo that includes you or your child and would like it removed from the site, we would be glad to do so. Just notify the webmaster with the details.
