Privacy Notice

Who is responsible for your information

Blessed Generation Church is the responsible party for personal information processed through BGC Digital Home.

To be completed by BGC before publication.

• Responsible party, full legal name: To be completed by BGC before publication.
• Physical address: To be completed by BGC before publication.
• Email address: To be completed by BGC before publication.
• Telephone: To be completed by BGC before publication.
• Information Officer: To be completed by BGC before publication.
• Deputy Information Officer, if appointed: To be completed by BGC before publication.
• Information Regulator contact and reference details: To be completed by BGC before publication.

What information is collected

BGC only receives the information below when you use the feature it belongs to:

• Account details: your name and email address when you create an account, and the name you choose on My profile. If you sign in with Apple and choose Hide My Email, BGC receives the private relay address Apple gives it, not your personal email address.
• Agreements and choices: a record of the terms and permissions you accept or withdraw, with the date, time and document version.
• Prayer requests and praise reports you send while signed in. They are linked to your account so you can delete them. If you choose the confidential option, your name is not shown to the prayer team.
• Salvation responses, but only when you ask for someone to follow up, together with the phone number or email address you give for that follow-up. If you do not ask for follow-up, your response stays on your device.
• Children's information that a parent or guardian adds: the child's first name, age group, ministry group, an optional medical or allergy note, an emergency contact and the permissions the parent or guardian gives.
• Sermon notes you write while signed in.
• Safety reports and privacy requests you send while signed in.
• Notification information, if you allow notifications in the BGC phone app (explained below).
• Visit statistics and technical diagnostics collected by the hosting service (explained below).

Information that is particularly sensitive

Some of this information may reveal your religious beliefs, your church participation, your family circumstances, your health situation or the situation of a child. Information of this kind is shared only with authorised church personnel who need it for the purpose you gave it, and is never published without your permission.

Information kept only on your device

Some things are stored only on the phone or computer you are using. They are not sent to BGC, are not part of your account and do not appear on your other devices: saved devotionals, sermons and series, devotional reading progress, notes written on a devotional, the prayer history list, salvation responses without a follow-up request, and anything you create while you are not signed in. Deleting the app, or clearing your browser's data, removes them.

What the app does not collect

• Card or bank details. Giving is by EFT from your own banking app; the app only shows the church's banking details.
• Your location. The map on the Visit page shows the church's address and does not use your phone's location.
• Your contacts, camera or microphone.
• Photographs or videos from members. There is no member profile photo. The photographs, flyers, artwork and voice notes in the app are uploaded by authorised church staff.
• Messages you write on the Contact or Serve pages. They open in WhatsApp, and only you decide whether to send them there.
• Advertising identifiers. The app has no advertising, no advertising tools, and no Firebase Analytics, Google Analytics or similar analytics tools, and it does not track you across other companies' apps or websites.

Push notifications

Notifications are only available in the BGC phone app, and only if you allow them when your phone asks. When you do, the app registers your phone with BGC so it can send you notifications: a notification token from Firebase Cloud Messaging, a random installation code the app creates, the type of phone (iPhone or Android), the app version, whether notifications are allowed, the categories you choose, and when the app last checked in. If you are signed in, this registration is linked to your account.

Notifications are delivered by Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging and, on iPhone, by Apple's push notification service. A notification contains only the title and a short line about a devotional, announcement, sermon or event, and the page it opens. It never contains your prayer requests or other personal information.

You choose the categories (daily devotionals, announcements, sermons and events) on the Notifications screen, and you can switch notifications off at any time there or in your phone's settings. Notifications are being introduced in stages, so you may not receive them yet even if they are switched on. Deleting your account removes your phone's notification registration.

Visit statistics and technical diagnostics

The website, which the phone app also displays, is hosted by Lovable. The hosting service records visit statistics and technical diagnostics to keep the service running and to show how the app is used: pages viewed, when a visit starts and how long pages stay open, the type of browser or phone and its language, an approximate country worked out from your device's time zone, page-speed measurements and reports of errors in the app. It uses a short-lived visit code stored in a cookie on your device.

The app does not give these statistics your name, email address or account. They are not used for advertising. They are part of the hosting service and cannot be switched off in the app's settings.

Why information is collected

• Creating and managing your account and signing you in
• Responding to prayer requests and providing pastoral follow up where you ask for it
• Supporting children and youth ministry with parent or guardian permission, including safety and emergency contact
• Keeping your sermon notes in your account
• Sending notifications you have chosen
• Recording the agreements and permissions you give
• Handling safety reports and privacy requests
• Keeping the platform working, secure and free from misuse
• Meeting legal obligations that apply to the church

Only what is necessary

The platform should only ask for information that is reasonably necessary for the purpose being served. Where a field is optional you may leave it blank, and where a purpose is optional you may decline it without losing access to the rest of the app.

How long information is kept

Personal information should not be kept indefinitely without a justification. BGC must approve a written retention schedule, setting out how long each category of information is kept and when it is deleted or archived.

Retention periods are set out in BGC's retention schedule and are available from the church office on request.

Who information may be shared with

Information may be handled by authorised BGC personnel who need it for their ministry role, and by service providers acting for the church. BGC does not sell personal information.

The service providers currently used by BGC Digital Home are:

• Hosting: Lovable (lovable.dev), which hosts the website and the content shown in the phone apps, and records the visit statistics and technical diagnostics described above.
• Accounts, database and file storage: Lovable Cloud, which manages sign in and stores account records, the information listed above, church content and uploaded media.
• Sign in: if you choose Sign in with Apple, or Google on the website, that company confirms who you are and shares your name and email address (or Apple's private relay address) with BGC.
• Email: Lovable's email service, used to send account emails (such as confirming your email address or resetting your password) and staff notices. When a prayer request is sent, prayer leaders receive an email with the type of request, the name the member chose (or "Anonymous") and the time. The prayer itself is not included.
• Push notifications: Google Firebase Cloud Messaging, and Apple's push notification service on iPhone, as described above.
• Video: sermon videos play in YouTube's privacy-enhanced player (youtube-nocookie.com). Google (YouTube) still receives information about your device and connection when the player loads, and more when you play a video, under YouTube's own privacy practices.
• Maps and text fonts: the Visit page shows a Google map of the church, and the app's fonts load from Google Fonts. Google receives standard information about your device and connection when these load.
• WhatsApp: if you choose to send a message to the church through WhatsApp, WhatsApp handles it under its own privacy practices.
• AI tools: Lovable AI, used only by authorised church staff to draft devotional artwork and study resources. Member information is not sent to these tools.
• Payment provider: none. The app does not process payments. Giving is by direct bank transfer (EFT) to the church's bank account.

Processing outside South Africa

Some of the service providers listed above may process information outside South Africa. BGC must assess the requirements that apply to trans border information flows under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 and record the outcome of that assessment.

Security

The following safeguards are in place:

• Role based access for administrators and ministry leaders
• Secure authentication
• Encryption of information in transit
• Access controls on stored files and media
• Limited administrative access on a need to know basis
• Audit logging of staff role changes and protected church settings
• Backups, security monitoring and a documented incident response process: To be completed by BGC before publication.

Your rights

Subject to applicable law you may:

• Ask for access to the personal information the church holds about you
• Ask for information to be corrected
• Ask for information to be deleted where that is appropriate
• Object to certain processing
• Withdraw consent where processing relies on your consent
• Change your communication and notification choices at any time
• Raise a privacy complaint with the church, or with the Information Regulator

How to use your rights

• Change your name on My profile, and your permissions on My consents.
• Use Data & Privacy Requests in the Legal & Privacy Centre to ask for a copy of your information, a correction, deletion, or to raise a concern.
• Use Delete my account to close your account yourself at any time. It removes your account, your name, the prayer requests you sent, sermon notes in your account, child profiles you manage, salvation follow-up requests, your consent history and your phone's notification registration. Safety reports you sent are kept for safeguarding but no longer linked to your account, any giving records are kept with your name and email removed, and a note that the account was deleted is kept. Items stored only on your device are removed by deleting the app.

Identity checks

Before information is released, corrected or deleted, BGC may need to verify who you are so that personal information is not given to the wrong person.

BGC privacy contact

The Information Officer and privacy contact details are awaiting appointment and confirmation by BGC.