Privacy Policy

Effective Date: January 23, 2026

1. Information We Collect

Account & Personal Data: Names, email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses provided during registration to establish your ministry identity.

Religious Beliefs: By joining a specific church or denomination via SanctusConnect, you may disclose your religious affiliation.

Financial Info: Donation history and payment identifiers used to facilitate spiritual giving through verified third-party gateways.

Media & Files: Audio recordings of sermons for transcription, profile pictures, and ministry documents uploaded for church management.

Device & Technical IDs: Unique identifiers like your Push Notification token and device model to ensure secure logins and timely reminders.

In-App Messages: Content of prayer requests, broadcast alerts, and announcements sent within the platform.

App Activity & Performance: Anonymized interaction data (button clicks, features used) and technical diagnostics (crash logs, performance reports) to help us maintain a stable experience.

2. Data Collection Purposes

App Functionality

We use your data to deliver the core SanctusConnect experience: processing your donations, scheduling event reminders via push notifications, and presenting church-specific content (Sermons, Prayers, and Announcements).

Security and Compliance

Device IDs and biometric signatures are used to protect your account from unauthorized access. Financial data is used to comply with tax and auditing regulations for charitable giving.

Analytics and Personalization

Anonymized usage data and crash logs help us identify bugs and improve the app's responsiveness. We use your preferences to personalize your spiritual feed (e.g., preferred Bible version).

3. Third-Party Artificial Intelligence (AI) Services & Data Sharing

SanctusConnect offers optional AI-powered tools to assist churches with sermon audio transcription, sermon summarization, Scripture reference extraction, and content translation. In compliance with App Store Guidelines 5.1.1(i) and 5.1.2(i), we strictly disclose all data collection, third-party data sharing, and user consent requirements:

What Data Is Collected & Shared

  • Audio Recordings: Recorded or uploaded sermon audio files containing the speaker's voice.
  • Sermon Metadata: Sermon title, preacher/speaker name, date, and selected language.
  • Ministry Text & Transcripts: Sermon transcripts and devotional text when requesting automated summaries, study insights, or language translation.

Third-Party AI Service Providers

  • Deepgram, Inc.: Audio recordings are securely transmitted to Deepgram for automated speech-to-text transcription. Deepgram processes audio in isolated environments and does not retain customer audio for public model training.
  • OpenAI, LLC / OpenRouter: Sermon transcripts and devotional text are processed to generate concise summaries, key takeaways, Scripture references, and multilingual translations. Under our enterprise API terms, submitted data is never used to train or improve public AI models.

User Permission & Affirmative Consent

Before any sermon audio or personal data is transmitted to a third-party AI provider, SanctusConnect displays an explicit in-app confirmation disclosing the specific data being sent and identifying the receiving providers, requiring affirmative user permission. Users and church leaders may always opt to enter sermon notes, summaries, and Scriptures manually without sending data to any third-party AI service.

Confirmation of Equal Protection (Guideline 5.1.2(i))

We confirm that all third-party AI service providers (including Deepgram, Inc. and OpenAI, LLC / OpenRouter) provide the same or equal protection of user personal data as described in this Privacy Policy. All data transmitted to third-party AI providers is encrypted in transit using industry-standard TLS 1.3 encryption, is processed solely to fulfill user-requested ministry features, is retained only as long as necessary to complete the processing, and is never used to train public AI models or sold to any third party.

On-Device Voice Playback (No Third-Party Sharing)

The Bible Reader voice feature uses Apple's native, on-device text-to-speech engine (AVSpeechSynthesizer). No audio, Scripture text, or user data is transmitted to any external server or third-party AI provider for voice reading.

4. Data Security and Sharing

We employ industry-standard encryption and security protocols (powered by Supabase) to protect all ministry data. We do not sell your personal information to third parties. We only share data with service providers necessary to run the app:

  • Cloud Infrastructure: Supabase and Vercel for database management and hosting.
  • Payment Gateways: Verified processors for recurring gives and donations; we do not store full credit card data.
  • Communication: Expo Notifications for sending push alerts to your device.
  • Speech & AI Processing: Deepgram, Inc. for sermon speech-to-text; OpenAI, LLC for sermon summaries and translations (governed by zero-data-retention and non-training terms).

5. Your Rights

You have the right to access, export, or request the deletion of your personal data at any time. Detailed steps for this can be found on our Delete Account page.

6. Data Retention

We retain your data as long as your account is active. When you request account deletion, your profile and ministry records are removed from our active databases. However, we may retain anonymized audit logs or backups for up to 30 days for security and data recovery purposes before permanent deletion.

7. Children's Privacy

SanctusConnect is intended for use by faith communities and their legal-aged members. We do not knowingly collect or solicit data from children under the age of 13.

8. Contact Us

If you have questions regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us at privacy@sanctusconnect.app.