Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Catholic Diocese of Orlu

Last updated: [June 2026]

1. Introduction

The Catholic Diocese of Orlu (“the Diocese,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is committed to protecting the privacy and personal data of all visitors to our website, parishioners, donors, and members of the public who interact with us. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, share, and protect your personal data when you visit our website at orludiocese.org or otherwise engage with our services.

We process personal data in accordance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023 (NDPA), the regulations and directives issued by the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), Section 37 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), and, where applicable to visitors located outside Nigeria, the principles of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

By using our website, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.

2. Who We Are (Data Controller)

The Catholic Diocese of Orlu is the data controller responsible for your personal data. Our website address is orludiocese.org. Our contact details are:

3. The Personal Data We Collect

Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect the following categories of personal data:

Information you provide directly:

  • Identity and contact details (name, email address, phone number, postal address)
  • Information submitted through contact, prayer-request, registration, or enquiry forms
  • Donation and payment-related information (where you make an offering or donation)
  • Information you provide when subscribing to newsletters or registering for events
  • Correspondence and communications you send to us
  • Any other information you voluntarily provide

Comments: When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and browser user-agent string to assist with spam detection. An anonymised string created from your email address (a “hash”) may be provided to the Gravatar service to check whether you are using it; the Gravatar privacy policy is available at https://automattic.com/privacy/. After your comment is approved, your profile picture is visible to the public alongside your comment.

Media: If you upload images to the website, please avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS), as visitors may be able to download and extract that location data.

Information collected automatically:

  • Technical data such as IP address, browser type, device information, and operating system
  • Usage data, including pages visited, time spent on pages, and navigation patterns
  • Cookies and similar tracking technologies (see Section 9)

Sensitive personal data: In the course of our religious and pastoral mission, we may process data that reveals religious affiliation. Where you engage with us as a member of the faithful (for example, in sacramental records or parish registration), such processing is carried out in connection with the legitimate activities of the Church and with appropriate safeguards. We do not collect sensitive personal data through the website unless you voluntarily provide it.

4. How We Use Your Personal Data (Purposes of Processing)

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

  • To respond to your enquiries, requests, and correspondence
  • To process and acknowledge donations and offerings
  • To register you for events, programmes, and activities
  • To send you newsletters, announcements, and pastoral communications where you have requested them
  • To administer the pastoral, charitable, educational, and sacramental activities of the Diocese
  • To enable and moderate comments and interactions on the website
  • To maintain the security and proper functioning of our website
  • To comply with legal, regulatory, and canonical obligations
  • To improve our website and services

5. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under the NDPA, we process your personal data only where we have a lawful basis to do so. Depending on the situation, our lawful bases include:

  • Consent — where you have given clear, informed, specific, and freely given consent (for example, subscribing to our newsletter or leaving a comment). You may withdraw consent at any time.
  • Contract — where processing is necessary to provide a service you have requested.
  • Legal obligation — where we are required to process data to comply with the law.
  • Legitimate interests — where processing is necessary for the legitimate activities of the Diocese, provided your rights and freedoms are not overridden.
  • Vital interests / public interest — in limited circumstances where processing is necessary to protect life or serve the public good.

6. How We Share Your Personal Data

We do not sell your personal data. We may share your personal data only with:

  • Parishes, institutions, and offices within the Diocese, for legitimate pastoral and administrative purposes
  • Service providers and data processors who act on our behalf (for example, website hosting, email delivery, payment processing, or automated spam-detection services), under written agreements requiring them to protect your data
  • Relevant Church authorities, including the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria or the Holy See, where appropriate
  • Public authorities and regulators, where required by law or to comply with legal process

If you request a password reset on the website, your IP address will be included in the reset email. Any third party with whom we share data is required to implement appropriate safeguards consistent with the NDPA.

7. International Transfers of Data

Some of our service providers (for example, website or email hosting) may store or process data outside Nigeria. Where we transfer personal data outside Nigeria, we take reasonable steps to ensure the recipient country or organisation provides an adequate level of protection, or that appropriate safeguards (such as contractual data-protection clauses) are in place, in line with the NDPA and the directives of the NDPC.

8. Data Retention

We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including to satisfy legal, regulatory, canonical, accounting, or reporting requirements.

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely so that we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically. For users who register on our website, we store the personal information they provide in their user profile; such users can view, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except their username), and website administrators can also view and edit that information.

Sacramental and ecclesiastical records may be retained permanently in accordance with the canonical practice and obligations of the Catholic Church. When personal data is no longer needed, we securely delete or anonymise it.

9. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to function properly and to improve your experience. Cookies are small text files stored on your device.

If you leave a comment, you may opt in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies for your convenience, so you do not have to re-enter them next time; these cookies last for one year. If you visit our login page, we set a temporary cookie to check whether your browser accepts cookies; it contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser. When you log in, we set cookies to save your login information and display choices — login cookies last two days, screen-option cookies last a year, and if you select “Remember Me” your login persists for two weeks; logging out removes these cookies. If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie storing only the post ID is saved and expires after one day.

Where we use analytics or functional cookies, these help us understand how visitors use the site and remember your preferences. You can control or disable cookies through your browser settings, though disabling certain cookies may affect functionality. Where required, we will request your consent before placing non-essential cookies.

10. Embedded Content from Other Websites

Articles and pages on this site may include embedded content (for example, videos, images, or articles). Embedded content from other websites behaves exactly as if you had visited the other website directly. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

11. Your Rights as a Data Subject

Under the NDPA (and the GDPR where applicable), you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

  • Right to be informed about how your data is processed
  • Right of access to the personal data we hold about you, including the right to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you
  • Right to rectification of inaccurate or incomplete data
  • Right to erasure (“right to be forgotten”) in certain circumstances — this does not include data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, canonical, or security purposes
  • Right to restrict processing in certain circumstances
  • Right to data portability, where applicable
  • Right to object to processing, including direct marketing
  • Right to withdraw consent at any time, where processing is based on consent
  • Right to object to automated decision-making, including profiling, that produces legal or similarly significant effects
  • Right to lodge a complaint with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at ict@orludiocese.org. We will respond within a reasonable time and in accordance with the law.

12. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure servers, encryption where appropriate, and staff awareness. However, no method of transmission over the internet is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

13. Children’s Privacy

We are committed to protecting the privacy of children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under the age of 18 without the consent of a parent or legal guardian. If you believe we have collected such data without appropriate consent, please contact us so we can take corrective action.

14. Third-Party Links

Our website may contain links to external websites, including those of the Holy See, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, parishes, or other organisations. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those websites. We encourage you to review their privacy policies.

15. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. The “Last updated” date at the top indicates when it was last revised. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

16. Complaints and Contact

If you have any questions, concerns, or complaints about this Privacy Policy or our handling of your personal data, please contact us:

Catholic Diocese of Orlu 430 BSC Road, Orlu, Imo State, Nigeria Email: ict@orludiocese.org | info@orludiocese.orgPhone: 0703 810 0292

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) if you believe your data protection rights have been infringed: Website: [https://ndpc.gov.ng] | Email: [verify on NDPC website]

Changes I made:

  • Set the data/ICT contact to ict@orludiocese.org throughout (Sections 2, 11, 16), keeping info@ as the general email.
  • Merged the WordPress technical text into the right legal sections: comments and Gravatar into Section 3, password-reset IP into Section 6, comment/user retention into Section 8, the detailed cookie behaviour into Section 9, and added a dedicated Section 10 (Embedded Content).
  • Removed all the repetitive “Suggested text:” labels and the duplicate standalone “Privacy Policy” header.
  • Renumbered the sections cleanly (now 16 sections).