Who We Are

Mt. Freedom Baptist Church (Mt. Freedom) is a fellowship of Gospel believers devoted to following, serving, and worshipping our Lord Jesus Christ, and committed to serving and sharing the Gospel with the Mountain Rest, SC community in which we live. Mt. Freedom is a registered non-profit religious organization chartered under the Beaverdam Baptist Association of Seneca, SC (beaverdamassoc.com), and is a member of the South Carolina Baptist Convention (https://www.scbaptist.org/) and the Southern Baptist Convention (https://www.sbc.net/). For more information about our church, including our mission, values, beliefs and church leaders please visit our church website – https://mtfreedombc.org/about.

We operate our website for the purposes of scheduling and inviting people to church activities, and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, upcoming events, church ministry opportunities and services, and links to various third-party Christian resources with our members, our local community, and around the world. Mt. Freedom highly encourages our website visitors to familiarize themselves with our privacy policy (this document) prior to sharing any personal information on our website.

What Personal Data We Collect and Why We Collect It

Mt. Freedom gathers and stores certain personal information such as names, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and birthdates, to facilitate communication with our website visitors and among members of our fellowship.

Website Visitor Contacts and Comments

Visitors who choose to leave comments about content they find on our website and visitors who contact the church or its leaders through our website contact forms are asked to provide their name and e-mail address in order to facilitate responses from Mt. Freedom. This information may be retained on the church website and e-mail accounts indefinitely.

Subscriber Registration

Mt. Freedom allows website visitors to register as website subscribers by providing the following personal information:

• Name – required
• Address – Mailing (required), Physical location
• Phone number – mobile, landline
• Email address – required
• Gender
• Birthdate
• Marital Status

NOTE – Physical addresses entered in the registration form will be provided automatically to Google Maps which generates a map window centered at the location given. This map is then visible to other registered website subscribers.

The purpose of this subscriber registration is to provide a church directory used to facilitate communication between the church leadership and the subscribers and among the subscriber, and to aid in scheduling various church activities. Participation in this subscriber registration is entirely voluntary, and may be cancelled any time at the request of the registered subscriber. Registered subscribers have full control over the information they choose to make visible to other registered website subscribers, and which communications they permit Mt. Freedom to send them. Personal information of registered subscribers is stored on the website host server in a password protected area using passwords chosen by the registered subscribers themselves or randomly generated by the website software.

WARNING – Subscribers should choose their passwords carefully, change them frequently, and protect them diligently. This not only better protects your own information, but also the information of the other registered subscribers in the church directory. Anyone who might gain unauthorized access to your subscriber registration would be able to see not only your own information, but also the information of the other registered subscribers.

Media Upload

Visitors should be aware that media files like images, audio, and video files may include embedded location, date, and timestamp information automatically generated by the camera or other recording device. This embedded information might be used without your knowledge to infer personal information like the location and time a photo was taken or video was recorded. Visitors desiring to prevent such information from being shared should delete it from media files prior to uploading.

Cookies

Most websites including Mt. Freedom’s may store small text files called “cookies” on visitors’ devices. Cookies are retrieved by the web server when someone visits the site and may be used to customize the visitor’s interaction with the website. For example, when a visitor logs into a website, the server stores a cookie called a session identifier on the visitor’s device which is then used to authenticate the logged-in visitor so that the communication between the visitor’s device and the server may be secured. Cookies are text files, and cannot be used to carry malware or embed it on your device. All modern web browsers provide the capability for the device operator to view and delete any cookies stored on the device at any time. Beware however, that deleting cookies from your device may severely disrupt communications between your device and web servers, including forcing you to be logged out. Mt. Freedom will never use cookies stored on your device to target ads, but may for example retrieve cookies stored on your device to determine whether you are logged in to the site, whether you are a registered site subscriber, whether you have already accessed specific site content, etc. In short, cookies are quite benign, and can safely be allowed on your device in almost every case. Nevertheless, you have the right to control which cookies are stored on your device or to prevent cookies from being stored on your device altogether, and to delete all cookies or selected cookies from your device at any time.

Website Visitor Site Interaction

Mt. Freedom’s website host is – https://www.hostinger.com/

Website e-mail services are provided by – https://titan.email/

Map and CAPTCHA services are provided by – https://www.google.com

Mt. Freedom uses the WordPress (https://wordpress.org) content management system and web page builder.

These providers each have their own data privacy and retention policies with which Mt. Freedom visitors should familiarize themselves.

In addition, Mt. Freedom’s website uses the following third-party software “plugins” to provide contact, comment, and subscriber registration forms, media file management, content caching, website email services, maps, website security, and various other website functionality:

• Forminator, WP Smush – https://wpmudev.com/
• Church Admin – https://www.churchadminplugin.com/
• Easy WP SMTP – https://easywpsmtp.com/
• Litespeed Cache – https://www.litespeedtech.com/
• Map Block for Google Maps – https://www.webfactoryltd.com/
• Popup Maker – https://wppopupmaker.com
• All In One WP Security – https://aiosplugin.com/

Analytics

These programs may collect and store visitors’ source IP addresses, web browser identifier, user device type and operating system, and date and location information embedded in any media files uploaded by the visitor. Mt. Freedom does not collect or maintain visitor analytic information, but these hosting services and third-party functionality providers may. Analytical information does not include personal information like names and email addresses, but may include user source IP address, location, device type, operating system, and browser software.

Who We Share Your Data With

Except as detailed above, Mt. Freedom will never share or sell your personal information with any third-party period.

How Long We Retain Your Data

Data collected by Mt. Freedom remains indefinitely unless otherwise requested by website visitors.

Implied Consent

By submitting contact, comment, and/or user registration forms and by interacting with Mt. Freedom’s website including uploading content, visitors implicitly agree to allow the information detailed above to be collected and stored.

Your Data Your Choice

Website visitors and registered subscribers have full control over what information they choose to share, and what they do not. Furthermore, anyone can request a full report of their information Mt. Freedom is holding at any time, and request that any or all of it be removed using any of the contact methods listed above.

Data Breach Procedures

In the event of a detected or suspected compromise of visitor and/or subscriber information, Mt. Freedom will immediately take the website offline while analyzing the event to determine whether a breach has occurred and the extent of the compromise. We will also make every effort possible to contact affected visitors/subscribers to inform them of the event by email using the most recent contact information available, and advise them of actions they can take to minimize the damage from the suspected data compromise. Mt. Freedom will also contact local law enforcement agencies to determine whether the suspected compromise violated any law, and will cooperate fully with those authorities to find and prosecute those responsible for the compromise if possible. If it is determined that a compromise has occurred, Mt. Freedom’s website administrators will immediately disable any affected subscriber registrations, and will coordinate with the affected subscribers to reinstate those registrations with a new password or permanently delete them if the subscribers so choose.