Privacy policy

If you read and listen

No account

You don’t sign up or sign in to read, listen, search, take notes or save passages. We don’t know who you are.

What stays on your device

Your notes, bookmarks, favourites and settings, the place you were reading and the church you joined stay on your device. We never receive them.

• On the website, your browser keeps them. Clearing this site’s data in your browser deletes them.
• In the app, the app keeps them in its own files on your phone or tablet. Deleting the app deletes them. Your device’s backup includes them (see Device backups).

What our servers see

To send you a chapter, a recording or your church’s page, our servers receive a request from your device, as any website does. We use it only to answer, and to keep the service working and safe.

Cloudflare, which runs our servers, keeps a log of these requests for up to 7 days, to help us find and fix problems. Each entry can include your IP address, the rough place Cloudflare works out from it (country, region and city), your browser and device type, and the address asked for, with how it was answered. That address says what was asked: a chapter or verse you opened, or the words you searched for, whether for a verse or a church. Sign-in tokens and cookies are masked.

When you search for a verse by what it’s about, your words also go to Cloudflare’s AI service, which works out their meaning so we can find the verses closest to it. Cloudflare does this for us, as it runs our servers. We don’t keep your searches. In the app, and on the website once you’ve downloaded the Bible, a search by the words of a verse stays on your device; searching by what a verse is about needs the internet.

Apart from these logs, we don’t keep a history of what you read, and we don’t try to find out who you are.

Visit counts on the website

The website counts visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which Cloudflare adds to its pages (the app has none). For each page you open it records the page’s address, how fast it loaded, the page you came from, and your browser, device type and country. Cloudflare says it doesn’t track people from site to site. It keeps every page view for 7 days, then about a tenth of them, as summaries we can see for 6 months.

Your church

Joining a church is saved on your device only. The church isn’t told, and we don’t keep a list of who joined. Your device asks our servers for the church’s songs, bulletins and links like any other page.

Downloads

The Bible and the recordings you download for offline use are saved on your device. Downloaded recordings aren’t part of your device’s backups. In the app, the Bible is built in.

The device voice (website only)

On the website, a chapter without a recording can be read aloud by a voice your browser provides. Some browsers’ voices are online services (Chrome’s “Google” voices, for example): with one of those, your browser sends the verses being read to its maker. If you haven’t chosen a voice in Settings, the app picks an English one your browser offers, and that can be one of these.

Sharing

When you share a verse, a passage, a note or the memory verse, it goes where you choose: in the app through your device’s share sheet, on the website through your browser’s (or it’s copied for you to paste). We never receive it. A shared link is to bible.dappit.org.

Backup files

On the Saved and Notes pages you can export a backup file of your notes, saved passages, settings and the church you joined, and import one, on the website and in the app. The file is yours: it goes only where you save or send it, and we never see it unless you send it to us.

• In the app, Export opens your device’s share sheet (Save to Files, Drive, Mail and the like), and on Android, Save to device opens the system’s screen for saving a file. To hand the file over, the app first writes it to its own temporary folder: on iPhone and iPad it’s deleted at the next export or when the app starts again; on Android it’s kept for a day, so the app you shared it with can finish reading it, and deleted the next time the app starts or exports after that. It isn’t part of your device’s backup.
• Importing a backup adds its notes and saved passages to the ones on your device. Its settings and church are only offered: nothing changes unless you choose to apply the settings or join the church.

Links that open the app

With the app installed, links to its pages on bible.dappit.org (a shared verse, a church’s sign-in link) open in the app, at that page, as if you’d opened it there. To allow this, Apple or your Android device checks a file on our website that names the app. Nothing about you is in that check.

Links to other sites

Churches can link to other websites. Those sites have their own privacy policies.

If you manage a church

Church admins sign in to add their church to the app and keep its page up to date.

Your account

• Your email address. You sign in with a 6-digit code we email to you: there’s no password. We don’t ask for your name. Asking for a code makes an account for that address, unconfirmed until the code is entered. One that’s never confirmed, and has no church or invite, is deleted after 30 days.
• Your sign-ins. On the website, our sign-in provider keeps a record of each sign-in (a session), with the IP address and the browser it came from. It goes when you sign out, or within a day after it expires.
• In the app, a sign-in token. It’s kept in your device’s secure storage (the Keychain on iPhone and iPad, the Keystore on Android), never in backups. We store only a fingerprint of it, which can’t be used to sign in. It stops working when you sign out, 30 days after you last used it, or 90 days after you signed in.
• Photos and files. The app opens your photos, camera or files only when you choose a file for a bulletin, and sends us only the file you chose.
• The church content rules. Before you change a church, you agree to the church content rules. We keep which version you agreed to, and when.

What you publish is public

Once our reviewers approve your church, its name, place, address, website and description, and its songs, bulletins (with their files), links and memory verses can be seen by anyone who uses the app or the website. Please don’t publish anything private about anyone.

• Photos are stored without their location and camera details.
• PDFs are stored as they are. Remove anything personal in one (an author’s name, say) before you upload it.
• A file keeps its name, which readers can see.
• Your church’s contact email isn’t public. Only its admins and our reviewers see it.
• Until your church is approved, and again if it’s taken down, it and its files aren’t shown to anyone else: you, its other admins and our reviewers can look at them in Church admin. There, each file’s link works for an hour, for anyone you share it with.

Other admins and invites

Your church’s other admins see your email address. When an owner invites someone, we keep that email address with the invite until they sign in with it or the invite is removed. We don’t email them: the owner lets them know.

Our review

Dappit’s reviewers, the people at Dappit who look after the app, approve each new church before it’s listed, and can take a church down. They can see each church’s details, including its contact email and its admins.

Emails

We email you sign-in codes, and a code to confirm it if you ask to delete your account. Postmark sends them for us.

Keeping it from being misused

To limit uploads, we count them by account and by church for 2 days. To stop misuse of the codes we email, we keep a count of the codes asked for and tried for 2 days. It’s linked to the account, and to one-way codes made from the IP address and the email address, never the addresses themselves. While Apple or Google is reviewing an update of the app, we record each sign-in code tried in the app (when, whether it was right, and a one-way code made from the IP address it came from, never the address itself) for 30 days, to stop guessing.

If you report a church

Anyone can report a church that shares something offensive, false or misleading, someone else’s work, or spam: tap Report on its page. You don’t need an account.

What we keep

The church, the reason you chose, what you wrote, the page you sent it from, and when. Your email address too, if you give one, so we can answer you.

We don’t keep your IP address with your report. To stop floods of reports, we count reports from each IP address (or each block of IPv6 addresses) for 2 days, using a one-way code made from it, never the address itself. Like any request, sending a report is in Cloudflare’s request logs for up to 7 days, with your IP address (see What our servers see), but not what you wrote.

Who sees it

Dappit’s reviewers. We email them a copy of your report through Postmark, without your email address. The church isn’t told who reported it.

How long we keep it

Until 90 days after we’ve dealt with it, and a year at most. If the church is deleted, its reports go with it. To have your report deleted sooner, email us.

Who handles data for us

• Cloudflare runs our website and servers, from data centres around the world, works out the meaning of verse searches with its AI service, stores churches’ files, and keeps our request logs and the website’s visit counts.
• Neon runs our database and church admins’ sign-in. The database is in London, in the United Kingdom.
• Postmark sends our emails: sign-in codes, and notices to our reviewers.
• Apple and Google distribute the app and, if you use them, keep your device’s backups, under their own privacy policies.

Cloudflare, Neon and Postmark handle data on our behalf, to provide their service to us, under their terms with us. They may handle it in countries other than yours. We don’t sell personal information, and we don’t share it with anyone else unless the law requires us to.

How long we keep it

Your notes, saved passages, settings and church

On your device, until you delete them

Request logs (Cloudflare)

Up to 7 days

The website’s visit counts (Cloudflare Web Analytics)

Every page view for 7 days, then about a tenth of them, in summaries, for 6 months

Counts used to limit sign-in codes, uploads, reports and wrong passphrases at our own admin page

2 days

Sign-in codes tried during an App Review

30 days

Sign-in codes we email

Until they’re used, or within a day after they expire

Website sign-in sessions (with their IP address and browser)

Until you sign out, or within a day after they expire

The app’s sign-in token (its fingerprint)

Until you sign out, or a week after it stops working (30 days unused, 90 days at most)

A church admin’s account, and which church content rules it agreed to

Until you delete it (30 days for one never confirmed, with no church or invite)

What a church publishes

Until its admins delete it, or the church is deleted

Reports

90 days after we’ve dealt with them, a year at most

Emails we sent (Postmark)

45 days

What’s deleted, in our database’s restore history (Neon)

A short time after it’s deleted

Deleting your data

If you read and listen

Delete notes and saved passages in the app whenever you like. Clearing this site’s data in your browser, or deleting the app, deletes everything it kept on your device. Your device’s backups, and backup files you exported, are yours to manage (see Device backups).

If you manage a church

Delete your account in the app or on the website: open Church admin, then “Signed in as …” → Delete account. We email you a code to confirm it. Before anything is deleted, you see what will happen to each of your churches.

• Deleted: your account, your sign-ins on every device, your admin rights, invites sent to your email, your agreement to the church content rules, and your email as the contact address of the churches you managed.
• A church only you managed that was never published is deleted too, with its files.
• A published church stays in the app, and what you added to it stays with it, for the people who use it. Our reviewers find it a new owner. Records of who did what no longer lead to you.
• Copies of the emails we sent you stay with Postmark, and traces in our request logs and our database’s restore history, for the times above.

If you sent a report

Email us, and we’ll delete it.

For anything else, email us at support@dappit.org.

Device backups

• The app: your notes, saved passages, settings and church go into your device’s own backup if you have backups on: iCloud or your computer for iPhone and iPad, your Google account for Android. They come back when you restore your device or move to a new one. Downloaded recordings, your church admin sign-in and the app’s temporary export files aren’t included.
• The website: your browser keeps what you save, and we don’t back it up.
• Both: to keep a copy of your own, or move to another device, export a backup file from the Saved or Notes page (see Backup files).

Apple and Google keep device backups under their own policies. We can’t see them.

Children

The Bible app is for a general audience. It isn’t designed for or aimed at children under 13. Reading needs no account, and asks nothing about you.

Church admin accounts are for adults, or for someone their church has authorised to manage its page.

We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you think a child has given us some (a church admin account, say, or a report with an email address), email us and we’ll delete it.

Security

• The app always connects to our servers encrypted (HTTPS), and so does the website at https://bible.dappit.org.
• Church admins sign in with one-time codes, not passwords. We store only fingerprints of the app’s sign-in tokens.
• The app runs only its own code: no third-party scripts. The website’s only other script is Cloudflare Web Analytics.
• Where we use IP addresses to stop misuse, we store only one-way codes made from them.
• Only Dappit’s reviewers see reports. A church’s contact email is seen only by its admins and our reviewers.

No system is perfectly secure. If you find a security problem, please email us.

Your choices

You can ask us what information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it or delete it. Email us from the address in question, so we know it’s you.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we’ll post the new version here and change the date at the top. If a change affects what we do with information you’ve already given us, we’ll tell church admins by email before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about your information? Email us.

Dappit (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2012/116396/07
3 Vian Road, Gillitts, 3610, South Africa

Support and common questions · Church content rules