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Multi-parish portal privacy settings and newsletter consents

In multi-parish portals, you can centrally define privacy policies and newsletter consents and distribute them to all connected parishes. Local parishes adopt the central specifications automatically and can add their own extensions if necessary.


Relevant for portal host installations and portal participant installations


Benefits of central privacy settings

  • Enforce uniform data protection standards across all parishes of a portal (relevant for GDPR)
  • Maintain newsletter consents centrally so that contacts consent consistently
  • Give local parishes room for their own adjustments without leaving the central framework
  • Reduce the effort for legal updates — one central change is effective everywhere


There are two perspectives on this feature:

  • Central organisation (Portal level): Defines central privacy policy and default newsletter consent
  • Local parish: Sees the central texts as read-only and can add local extensions




Contents



Roles & permissions

  • Organisation administrator: Users with organisation administrator rights can work with data protection and consents.



Set up central privacy policy


The central privacy policy is controlled via portal access in ChurchDesk. Local parishes see the text as read-only and can only add their own extensions.


Steps

  1. Switch to the Portal section in the navigation menu.
  2. Click on Legal (Central) on the left and select Create statement and then Privacy policy.
  3. Provide privacy policy statement as text — You write the full text directly in the editor or use the ChurchDesk template.
  4. Enter the Data Controller for data processing: Name, street address, phone, and email of your central organisation. Leave this field blank if it should be filled in by the local parish instead.
  5. Enter the data privacy contact: Name and address of the data protection officer or a correspondingly designated person.
  6. Complete the full privacy policy statement in the editor. You can insert the ChurchDesk template via "Add default template" — this only works if the editor is empty.
  7. Save the statement by clicking "Save changes".



TIP: If the central text changes later, all parishes adopt the change automatically — the local extensions remain untouched.




Local extensions to the privacy policy


Local parishes cannot overwrite the central privacy policy — however, they can add their own extensions, for example, in the case of joint responsibility for personal data.


Steps

  1. Open the ChurchDesk settings and then click on Privacy policy.
  2. In the upper area, you can see the read-only text of the central privacy policy. If your parish is part of multiple portals, all central statements are displayed — the one from the portal with the most parishes first.
  3. Enter the Data Controller for data processing and the data privacy contact of your parish.
  4. Write your extensions in the "Local extension" field. This text will be appended to the bottom of the central statement and does not overwrite it.
  5. Save via "Save changes".




NOTE: In the event of significant changes to the scope or purpose of the privacy policy, you must inform all contacts who consented to the previous statement and provide them with a link to the new version.



Set up central newsletter consent


With the central newsletter consent, you define a default consent that all parishes of your portal use. It is automatically linked to every newsletter sign-up, provided you mark it as default.


Steps

  1. Switch to the Portal section in the navigation menu.
  2. Click on Legal (Central) on the left and select Create statement and then Newsletter consent.
  3. Under "Full consent statement — I agree to", enter the short text that contacts see when signing up.
  4. Activate "Make this template default option for all newsletter sign-ups" so that the consent is linked automatically.
  5. Provide consent statement as text — You write the full text directly in the editor.
  6. Enter the data privacy contact. If a contact person has already been defined for data protection, we use this as the standard. This field is read-only for local parishes, which can add additional contact persons for joint controllers in the text of the local extensions.
  7. Save by clicking "Save changes".



NOTE: Only one type of consent can be linked as default per newsletter sign-up. If you define a new default consent, it replaces the previous one for all future sign-ups.



Local extensions to the newsletter consent


Steps

  1. Switch to the People module.
  2. Click on Consents.
  3. Click on "More" for the respective consent.
  4. Click on "Provide consent statement as text" and complete your text.






Search terms: Privacy policy, data privacy statement, consent, newsletter consent, GDPR, portal, central administration, multi-parish, Data Controller, data privacy contact, data protection officer, legal central, local extension

Updated on: 14/08/2026

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