STBC App Privacy Policy

Effective November 2, 2026. Spirit Temple Bible Church operates the STBC app under ESE DUKE EL-SHADDAI CHRISTIAN CENTER, INC. For privacy questions, corrections, withdrawal of contact consent or account/data deletion requests, email [email protected].

Public access and accounts

Church information, teaching, public events and media links are available without an account. Accounts are for adults aged 18 and older. Registration asks users to confirm their age without collecting a birth date or independently verifying age. Account features use your email address, Firebase account identifier and account preferences. Firebase Authentication handles passwords, email verification and account recovery. STBC does not store your password in its church content database.

Church profiles and church-management features

Verified adult account holders may provide their name, email, phone number, postal address, birth date, anniversary and church-profile information. Church-management features can record membership and campus information, group associations, consent choices, event registrations, volunteering, attendance, uploaded records and related staff action records. Authorized staff may maintain ministry and pastoral-care notes; those notes can contain religious, health or other sensitive information. Provide only information appropriate for the ministry purpose. Staff access depends on current assignment, campus and applicable permissions; privileged church-management access requires an authenticator. Creating an app account does not establish church membership or staff access. Designated app-review accounts use separate fictional church-management data; existing church records are not imported into that review data.

Prayer requests and membership inquiries

Prayer submissions include your message, request type, campus, contact-consent choice, processing status and timestamps. Your message may contain religious, health or other sensitive information. Share only what you want authorized church staff to review; avoid unnecessary information about other people. Authorized staff review requests according to assigned roles and campus access. Confidential requests require separate pastoral access. Staff notes and workflow records are private. A testimony or praise report is not automatically published. Membership inquiries include your name, optional introduction, campus and consent for staff review and contact through your verified account email. Staff contact details are made available according to your consent and the applicable workflow.

Children’s ministry registration and attendance

Verified adult account holders may register children for the Bethlehem children’s ministry after confirming they are authorized to share the information. Children do not create accounts. Registration records child names, birth dates, allergies or care information, authorized pickup adult names, an optional parent or guardian phone number, the adult account identifier and consent timestamps. Service records include classroom assignments, attendance, arrival and pickup confirmations, and staff action records. Only the registering adult and authorized ministry staff can access the relevant records. These records support classroom placement, care and supervised pickup. The optional phone number lets authorized ministry staff contact the parent or guardian about attendance or care; it is not used for advertising or marketing. Parents can edit or clear it in the child’s profile. Printing is disabled. Contact the ministry lead for help resolving active attendance or pickup before a related deletion request is fulfilled.

Optional notifications and security

If you enable notifications, the app registers a device token, platform and selected topics so Firebase Cloud Messaging can deliver announcements. You can change topics in the app, decline notification registration or turn off permission in your phone settings. Notification jobs and delivery receipts support announcement delivery and retries. Please do not put private prayer details into a notification. Firebase and Apple integrity services may process installation, device-integrity and service-security information used to protect app access. Staff authenticator enrollment and verification are handled by Firebase Authentication; do not send passwords, authenticator keys or codes to STBC by email. STBC does not operate its own advertising or app analytics feature. The embedded YouTube player has separate provider practices described below.

Service providers and external links

Firebase provides authentication, database services, backend workflows, integrity checks and push delivery. The app database and deployed backend functions are located in us-east1, South Carolina, United States. Other provider services, including authentication, messaging and integrity checks, may process information elsewhere under their own arrangements. See https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy. Giving and external media links open Flocknote, YouTube, Facebook or official church pages. When you choose Watch in the app, the official YouTube player loads inside STBC using Privacy Enhanced Mode. YouTube may process connection, device and playback information for playback, security, audience measurement and non-personalized advertising. This mode does not use embedded views to personalize advertising elsewhere. This is not a promise that YouTube collects no data. See https://policies.google.com/privacy and https://www.youtube.com/t/terms. YouTube and Facebook external viewing options remain available. Those services have their own policies and terms. STBC’s app does not collect payment-card details or confirm that a donation was completed. SMS sending and in-app payment processing are disabled in this release.

Retention and account/data deletion requests

Automatic account and church-record deletion is disabled in this release. In the app, open More > My account > Account and data requests to record a request, or use the public account-deletion page or email [email protected] from your registered address. A request does not immediately erase an account or its records. STBC verifies ownership before manual fulfillment and handles verified requests within 30 days after ownership verification. Applicable lawful-retention exceptions are disclosed during handling. You may request deletion of your account and associated personal data, or ask about deletion of particular personal data. Do not include passwords, authenticator codes, payment-card details or unnecessary prayer or child information.

Recovery copies and retained records

Prayer, membership, profile, church-management and related private workflow records remain while needed for their ministry purpose or until the applicable verified deletion request is fulfilled, subject to disclosed lawful-retention exceptions. Notification jobs, delivery receipts and provider operational/security records have separate lifecycles; no fixed retention period is currently set for notification jobs and receipts. Deletion from an active database does not immediately remove separately retained recovery copies. The legacy church database’s published backup schedule is daily snapshots retained for 30 days and weekly snapshots retained for 12 weeks. The new isolated church-management databases use daily backups retained for seven days, with point-in-time recovery where enabled. Recovery copies remain until their applicable retention expires; provider recovery copies and operational/security records may follow different arrangements. Donation records held by giving providers are handled separately by those providers.

Your choices and contact

Email [email protected] to request correction of information, withdraw contact consent, ask a privacy question or request account/personal-data deletion. For account-related requests, use your registered email address so the church can verify ownership. If you cannot access that inbox, contact the same address to discuss ownership verification. Withdrawing contact consent does not itself delete existing submissions. Updates to this policy are published on this page with a revised effective date.