Privacy Policy

1. WHO THIS POLICY COVERS

(a) Members: individuals who create a ChurchFam account and join a church's community.

(b) Churches and their administrators: the church organizations that subscribe to ChurchFam and the people who administer their communities.

(c) Directory-only individuals: people whose information a church uploads to its directory (for example, through a Planning Center or CSV import) but who have not created an account.

(d) Website visitors: people who visit churchfam.co or churchfam.app without an account.

2. INFORMATION WE COLLECT

(a) Account information you provide: your name, email address, password (stored in hashed form; we cannot read it), date of birth (used to verify account eligibility), profile photo if you add one, and your church affiliation.

(b) Content you share: posts, comments, reactions, photos, prayer requests, event responses, and group memberships within your church's community. By its nature, this content can reveal your religious affiliation, and prayer requests may reveal sensitive information such as health matters. We treat all of it as private community content and use it only to provide the Service.

(c) Directory information provided by your church: your church may upload directory records such as names, contact information, household groupings, and photos. This can include information about people who have not created accounts, including children in member households. Churches are responsible for having the right to share this information with us (see Section 10).

(d) Billing information (churches only): subscriptions are billed through our payment processor, Stripe. Stripe collects and stores payment card details; we do not store full card numbers. We keep records of your church's plan, billing contact, and payment status.

(e) Usage and device information: when you use the app, we collect app interaction events, and device information such as device type, operating system, and app version, to understand how the Service is used and to fix problems. We also collect crash and error reports. Our public website (churchfam.co) uses analytics and advertising cookies to measure traffic and the results of our advertising. The app and web app (churchfam.app) use only cookieless, first-party product analytics that do not identify you.

(f) Communications: if you contact support or communicate with us, we keep those messages.

(g) Sensitive information. The Services are designed for church communities and therefore process information that reveals church membership or religious affiliation. Prayer requests and other content may also reveal health, family, disability, racial or ethnic, sexual-life, or other sensitive information. Where required by law, we obtain express consent before processing sensitive information. Users should submit sensitive information only when they are comfortable sharing it with the audience selected within their church community.

3. HOW WE USE INFORMATION

(a) To provide the Service: operating your church's private community, showing your posts and prayer requests to your church, maintaining the directory, and sending push notifications you have enabled (for example, when someone in your church asks for prayer).

(b) To send email: transactional email such as sign-in, receipts, invitations, and notification or community summary emails; and, for church leaders who sign up for them, product and marketing emails, which you can unsubscribe from at any time.

(c) To run the business: billing churches, providing support, and keeping records we need for legal and accounting purposes.

(d) To keep the Service safe and working: security, fraud prevention, moderation of reported content, debugging, and improving features based on aggregate usage.

(e) What we do not do: we do not sell or rent personal information; we do not share information collected in the app for advertising; and we do not show ads. We do not use engagement-driven ranking: your community feed is chronological, and we never suppress or promote content to keep you scrolling. Features that summarize or highlight community activity, such as email summaries, exist to help you stay connected, not to maximize your time in the app.

4. HOW INFORMATION IS SHARED WITHIN THE SERVICE

(a) Your church community: your profile, directory information, and content are visible to members of your church's community according to the community's structure (for example, posts in a private group are visible only to that group). ChurchFam communities are not public and are not indexed by search engines.

(b) Church administrators: your church's administrators can see member profile and directory information for their community and can moderate content within it.

(c) Other members' devices: content you share is delivered to your fellow members' devices. Please remember that people you share with can save or share what they see; community rules in our Terms ask members not to share others' content outside the community.

(d) Websites: our public website (churchfam.co) uses cookies for analytics and advertising measurement, including tools from Google and Meta. You can opt out at any time using the “Cookie choices” link in the website footer. The app and web app do not use tracking cookies. Strictly necessary cookies may be set during checkout by our payment processor on its own pages.

(e) Church data exports. Authorized church administrators may export directory information and other community data for legitimate community administration, continuity, safety, recordkeeping, or legal purposes. An export may include Member Content that the church is authorized to receive, but it does not transfer ownership of that content. Churches are required to protect exported personal and sensitive information and may not use it for unrelated purposes.

5. SERVICE PROVIDERS AND OTHER DISCLOSURES

(a) We share personal information only with service providers who process it on our behalf to run the Service, under contracts that limit their use of it. Our current providers include: Supabase (application database, authentication, and file storage), Stripe (payment processing for churches), Resend (transactional email), Kit (marketing email for church leaders), PostHog (product analytics), Sentry and BetterStack (error and uptime monitoring), Vercel (website hosting and website analytics), Google and Meta (website advertising measurement), and Apple and Google (app distribution and push notification delivery).

(b) Legal and safety: we may disclose information if required by law or legal process, or where reasonably necessary to protect the rights, safety, or property of ChurchFam, our users, or others.

(c) Business transfers: if ChurchFam is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this Policy's commitments.

(d) With your church: as described in Section 4, your information is shared with your church's community and administrators as part of how the Service works.

6. SECURITY

(a) We protect personal information with administrative, technical, and physical safeguards, including encryption in transit and at rest, access controls, and hashed passwords.

(b) No service can guarantee perfect security, but we design ChurchFam so that your community's content stays within your community.

(c) If we become aware of a breach of security affecting your personal information, we will notify affected churches and users without undue delay, consistent with applicable law.

7. DATA RETENTION

(a) We keep your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Service.

(b) If you delete your account, we will delete or de-identify your profile and personal information within a reasonable period, subject to limited legal, security, fraud-prevention, and accounting exceptions. Content you posted may remain within your church community without being linked to your active account when necessary to preserve shared conversations. Because written content may itself identify a person, you may request deletion of specific posts, comments, or prayer requests by deleting them before account deletion or contacting support@churchfam.co. We will evaluate and honor such requests as required by applicable law.

(c) If a church's subscription ends, the church has 60 days to export its community data, after which we delete the community's data within 90 days, except as retention is required by law.

(d) Residual copies may persist in encrypted backups for a limited period before being overwritten in the ordinary backup cycle.

8. YOUR CHOICES AND RIGHTS

(a) Access and correction: you can view and edit your profile information in the app at any time.

(b) Deletion: you can delete your account directly in the app (Settings, then Delete Account) or by emailing support@churchfam.co.

(c) Notifications: you control push notifications in the app's notification settings and in your device settings.

(d) Email: transactional emails are part of the Service; marketing emails to church leaders include an unsubscribe link in every message, and we honor unsubscribes promptly.

(e) Privacy rights. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to confirm whether we process your personal information; access, correct, delete, or obtain a portable copy of it; withdraw consent; restrict or object to certain processing; and appeal a decision concerning your request. We do not sell personal information collected in the app or process it for targeted advertising. Website visitors can opt out of advertising cookies using the “Cookie choices” link in the website footer. To submit a request or appeal, email support@churchfam.co with the subject line "Privacy Request" or "Privacy Appeal." We may take reasonable steps to verify your identity and will respond within the period required by applicable law. You may also have the right to contact your state, provincial, or national privacy regulator.

(f) Directory-only individuals: if a church has uploaded your information and you would like it corrected or removed, contact your church's administrator or email support@churchfam.co and we will work with the church to resolve it.

(g) Sensitive-data consent. Where we rely on your consent to process sensitive information, you may withdraw that consent by deleting the relevant content, changing your account information, deleting your account, or contacting support@churchfam.co. Withdrawal does not affect processing that occurred before withdrawal and may prevent us from continuing to provide features that necessarily depend on the information.

9. CHILDREN

(a) ChurchFam accounts require users to be at least 18 years old, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children through accounts. We collect date of birth at signup to verify eligibility.

(b) Church directory uploads may include information about children in member households. The church providing that information is responsible for having all legally required authority and verifiable parental or guardian consent. ChurchFam uses such information only to provide the private directory and related Services to that church. We may restrict, reject, or delete children's information when appropriate, including when required consent cannot be verified.

(c) If you believe a child's personal information has been provided to us improperly, or a child has created an account, contact support@churchfam.co and we will delete it.

10. OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR CHURCH

Your church generally determines why and how directory information and other Church Content are provided to ChurchFam. For that information, the church generally acts as the controller or responsible organization and ChurchFam processes the information on the church's behalf to provide the Services. ChurchFam separately determines how it processes member accounts, authentication data, product analytics, security information, support communications, billing contacts, and records required for its own legal and operational purposes. For those activities, ChurchFam generally acts as an independent controller or responsible organization.

11. WHERE WE PROCESS DATA

ChurchFam is operated from the United States, and personal information is processed and stored in the United States. If you use the Services from outside the United States, including from Canada, you understand that your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States. We apply the protections described in this Policy regardless of where you are located, and Canadian users may have rights under Canadian privacy law that we will honor.

12. CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

We may update this Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you through the app or by email before the changes take effect and update the effective date above. Your continued use of the Services after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.

13. CONTACT US

Email us at support@churchfam.co (privacy questions, rights requests, and general support)

Mail: BlueDot Designs LLC d/b/a ChurchFam, 5900 Balcones Drive, Suite 100, Austin, TX 78731