Privacy Policy

The short version

Theologos is a Bible-study app made by Theologos LLC. We store what you create in it — your profile, reflections, notes, highlights, posts — so it works across your devices and with the people you choose to share it with. We do not sell your data, we do not show advertising, and we do not track you across other apps or websites. You can delete your account and everything only you own at any time, from inside the app.

Who is responsible

The data controller is Theologos LLC (“we”), the maker of Theologos, reachable at contact@mytheologos.com. This policy covers the Theologos iOS app and the web app at mytheologos.com, which share one account and one backend.

What we collect

• Account. An account id, your display name and @username, the sign-in method you use (Sign in with Apple, Google, or email and password) and the email address that method gives us. With Sign in with Apple you may hide your real email; we then only see Apple’s relay address. Passwords are stored hashed by our authentication provider; we never see them.
• What you make. Reflections, findings and conclusions in circles; private verse notes, highlights and saved verses; reading positions; posts, comments, reactions, reposts and quotes; events you create or RSVP to and check-ins at events you host; church pages you run and what you publish on them; places you save on the map; photos you upload (profile, church, circle, post and event images).
• Social graph. Who you follow and who follows you, follow requests, the circles and churches you belong to, invitations, and the people you have blocked.
• Optional profile details. A bio and, if you choose, your Christian tradition (for example Eastern Orthodox) with a switch that controls whether others can see it.
• Notifications. If you allow notifications, a device push token and your per-type preferences. The notifications themselves (who followed you, a reply, a gathering reminder) are stored so your inbox works.
• Location. The app has no background location access. On the Explore map, “Near me” asks for your location once, uses it on the device to centre the map and compute distances, and does not send it to our servers. When you pin a church or circle on the map, only that pinned place is stored, because you asked for it to be shown. The map remembers the last area you looked at on your device only.
• Technical data. Our hosting providers keep short-lived server logs (IP address, request time, user agent) to run and protect the service. We do not use analytics or advertising SDKs.

Why we use it

• To run the service you signed up for — showing your circles, keeping your notes in sync, delivering posts to followers (performance of a contract).
• With your consent — push notifications and one-time location use; you can withdraw either in the app or in your device settings.
• Our legitimate interests — keeping the service secure, preventing abuse (rate limits, blocking, reports, moderation), fixing problems, and answering your messages.

We do not use your content to train AI models, and we do not profile you for advertising.

What’s private and what’s shared

• Only you: personal highlights, notes, saved verses and places, reading position, notification preferences.
• Your circle: reflections, findings, conclusions, shared highlights, the week’s chapter, gathering notes — visible to that circle’s members (and to the admins of a church that owns the circle).
• People who can see your profile: your name, @username, bio, tradition if you allow it, and reading stats according to your visibility setting. A private account limits this to approved followers.
• Public: church pages with their posts, events, service times and live streams; your posts if your account is public; the shareable web pages for posts, churches, events and circle invitations, which are readable without an account so links you share show a preview.

Who processes it for us

We use a small number of providers under data-processing agreements. They only process data on our instructions:

• Supabase — database, authentication and server functions (hosted in the United States). Every table is protected by row-level security so only you and the people you share with can read your data.
• Cloudflare R2 — storage for uploaded photos; photos are served from a public address so they can appear in the app and in shared links.
• Vercel — hosts the web app; keeps request logs briefly.
• Apple — Sign in with Apple and push notifications (APNs); Google — Google sign-in on the web. Each only receives what its sign-in or notification service needs.

Some features load content from third parties directly to your device, and those services see your IP address the way any website does: map tiles from Apple Maps (iOS) or OpenFreeMap (web); place look-ups you type into the web map, sent to OpenStreetMap’s Nominatim; live streams, which are YouTube embeds governed by Google’s privacy policy when you press play. Church listings on the map come from OpenStreetMap data and contain no personal data. The daily church calendar is fetched by our server from orthocal.info; your identity is not sent.

International transfers

Our providers store data mainly in the United States. Where the GDPR applies to you, transfers rely on the providers’ standard contractual clauses and, where available, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

How long we keep it

• Your account and content: until you delete them or delete your account.
• Notifications: kept in your inbox until you delete your account; push tokens are removed when you sign out or the device stops being registered.
• Server logs: a few weeks at most, per provider.
• Reports you file about content: kept while the report is open and briefly after it is resolved, for moderation records.

Your choices and rights

• Set your account private and choose who sees your progress in Profile → Edit profile.
• Choose which notifications you get in Settings → Notifications, per church or circle from their pages, or turn them off in your device settings.
• Block or report people and content from their profile or post.
• Delete your account in Settings → Delete account. This permanently removes your profile, sign-in identities and everything only you own; circles you own pass to the longest-standing member or close; church pages you run pass to another admin or are removed; your reflections, findings and shared highlights are removed. If you signed in with Apple, the app also revokes that authorisation with Apple. There is no recovery period.
• Where the GDPR, UK GDPR or a similar law applies, you also have the rights to access, correct, export or erase your data, to restrict or object to processing, and to complain to your supervisory authority. Email us and we will respond within one month.
• Residents of California and similar jurisdictions: we do not sell or share personal information for advertising, and we honour the rights described above.

Security

Data travels over TLS and is stored encrypted at rest by our providers. Access to your data is enforced in the database itself, per row, per account. Uploads are checked and rate-limited. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach affecting you we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

Children

Theologos is not directed at children under 13 (or the higher age your country requires for consent, up to 16 in parts of the EU), and we do not knowingly collect data from them. When you set up your profile you confirm that you have reached that age; we store that you confirmed it, when, and which age the sentence named — never a date of birth. If you believe a child has an account, contact us and we will remove it.

Changes

When this policy changes materially we will update the date above and, for significant changes, tell you in the app. Earlier versions are available on request.

Contact

Questions or requests: contact@mytheologos.com. Theologos is made by Theologos LLC.