App Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

The Quantum Disciple ("we", "us") publishes the Quantum Disciple app. This policy covers the app. Our website, including the web version of the app, is covered by our website privacy policy.

2. Using the app without an account

Without an account you can read the Bible, Christian News and Explore, use today's verse and puzzle, and play Bible Chess against its first opponent; section 3 lists the features that need a free account. Without an account, the following is stored only in the app's private storage on your device, protected by iOS file protection. We have no copy of it:

• Study desks, open passages, notes, questions, highlights and bookmarks
• Reading rhythm, learning progress, quiz results, completed cases and lessons, streaks, puzzles and badges
• Collections, Question Board questions you write, saved news stories, and speaking-event poll answers and questions
• AI conversation history and the text of documents you attach to AI questions
• My Faith Journal: entries, tags, questions and reflections. Journal files use iOS's strongest file protection, so they are unreadable while your device is locked, and you can require Face ID or your passcode to open the journal.
• Your profile picture choice, including any photo you pick from your library, and your settings
• Shape QDCM: a topic suggestion you've started but not sent (with a random code that stops it being saved twice), a poll choice you made before signing in, which topic notices the app has already shown or alerted you about, and your Topic Alerts On This iPhone setting
• Whether you signed up for our email community, how many times you chose "Not Right Now," and when (section 4)
• After you sign up for our email community while signed in: the email address and topics of that signup (and nothing else), so that "Send Again" sends the confirmation email to the same address. It is never synced, and it is deleted as soon as the app sees that no confirmation is pending any more (you confirmed, or the request expired or was replaced), whenever you sign out (including when your session ends or you delete your account), when you choose "Use A Different Email" and when you delete all data on this device (section 4)
• Your Share Usage Data choice and a random install ID, created the first time usage is sent while you're signed out and deleted when you turn the setting off (section 4)
• Bible Chess: a game in progress (the opponent, its starting position, the moves so far, and when it started and was last saved), your wins, losses and draws against each opponent, the opponent you picked last, and your sound and animation settings. Bible Chess runs entirely on your device: its opponents never contact a server, and none of this is synced, even with an account.
• Which features that need an account stay open on this device because it already had your data in them: the first time this version of the app runs, and each time you sign out, it notes whether the Puzzle Library and badges already had data here (section 3)

Daily Breadle is the exception. To keep each day's answer secret and score your guesses fairly, the app sends each guess to our server (mobileapp.quantumdisciple.com) with a random player ID it created for this game and keeps on this device. Our server keeps that ID with your guesses, the result and when you played, so your game can be checked and resumed; it never asks for your name or email, and its game records do not include your IP address. Without an account these records are deleted after 400 days. If you sign in, your game is kept with your account instead (a game started on this device that day moves to it), and it is deleted when you delete your account.

3. If you create an account

An account is free. Without one you can still read; you need one for My Faith Journal, Learn, Challenge, the Puzzle Library of earlier puzzles, badges and board styles, Bible highlights, notes and bookmarks, Shape QDCM, and Bible Chess opponents after the first, which show a preview and an invitation to create an account instead. If this device already has something you made in one of these features (for Bible Chess, a game or record against that opponent; Shape QDCM has always needed an account), that feature stays open on it without an account, and nothing is deleted. A free account does not include the AI assistant (section 4). An account also lets your progress follow you between this app and quantumdisciple.com.

• What we keep about your account: your username, email address, first and last name, a scrambled (hashed) form of your password that cannot be turned back into the password, which of our built-in profile pictures you chose, whether journal sync is on, when the account was created, and when you last signed in. For each sign-in and failed sign-in we record the time and IP address, and delete those records after 30 days. To limit automated sign-ups, we keep the IP address of each attempt to create an account for one hour. We don't verify or email your address unless you contact us or use it to join our email community (section 4).
• What syncs: while you are signed in, the app stores these on our server (mobileapp.quantumdisciple.com, operated by us) so they also appear on your other devices: your daily journey, streak, puzzle progress, badges and board style; quiz results and learning progress; Bible highlights, notes, bookmarks, memory passages and reading rhythm; your answers in Daily Cases and private discussion questions; collections, Question Board questions and saved news stories; listening positions; and your "Stay Connected" prompt status.
• Your Faith Journal syncs only if you turn on Sync My Journal (off unless you turn it on). When it is on, your journal entries, tags, questions and reflections are stored on our server in readable form, so anyone with access to that server could read them. Turning it off deletes the journal copy from our server; the copy on your device stays.
• Never sent: a photo you pick for your profile picture (it stays on the device where you picked it), AI conversations, Bible Chess games and records, journal drafts, journal lock and reminder settings, and Bible text.
• Staying signed in: the app keeps a sign-in code in the iOS Keychain. It stops working after 180 days, or after 60 days without use, or when you sign out.
• Shape QDCM (accounts only). If you vote in a topic poll, we keep the poll, your choice, when you voted, that you used the iPhone app, a random code the app sends with the vote, and a link to your account, so each account votes once; a submitted vote can't be changed. Results (each option's vote count and percentage, never who voted) are shown only to signed-in members, after they vote (for polls that show results while open) or once the poll closes, unless we keep a poll's results private. Twelve months after you vote, the link to your account is removed and the vote no longer appears in your Shape QDCM list. If you suggest a topic, we keep what you wrote, the category, your optional answer to "Why does this matter to you?", when you sent it, that you used the iPhone app, and a link to your account; only our staff read them, and we never publish your name or your wording. Twelve months after we receive it, we delete the "Why does this matter to you?" text and remove the link to your account (it then no longer appears in your Shape QDCM list); the wording may be kept without any link to you, as planning evidence. (A notice request for a suggestion we never matched to a topic is deleted then too. If we did match it to a topic, your notification choice for that topic, including that it started from a suggestion, stays with your account until you turn it off or delete your account.) Following a topic records your interest. To prevent abuse we count each account's attempts (votes: 30 a minute; suggestions: 5 an hour and 20 a day) and delete those counters within about two days. Voting, suggesting and following never add you to our email list or turn on notices, and none of it is ever sent to an AI service. Full details are in our website privacy policy.
• "You Asked, We Built It" notices (accounts only, your choice). Only if you check "Notify me if QDCM creates content about this topic." (it starts unchecked) or turn on notices for a topic, we record your choice (the exact wording, when and where) and, when we publish content that one of our editors marks as answering that topic, place one notice in your in-app inbox (Me → You Asked, We Built It). You get at most one notice per topic (if we later merge two topics, you may already have had one for each). We record when each notice was delivered to your inbox, opened and tapped. You can turn notices off for a topic or, with the account's Topic Notifications setting (Me → Shape QDCM → Your Topics), for all topics. Notice choices and notices are kept while your account exists and deleted with it.

4. What is sent, and when

The app connects to these services only when you use the feature that needs them:

• Daily Breadle (mobileapp.quantumdisciple.com). When you play, each guess and the random player ID described in section 2 (or, when you're signed in, your account) so our server can score it; the answer is sent to the app only after you finish.
• Content and Bible text (mobileapp.quantumdisciple.com, operated by us). When the app opens, it checks for new lessons, daily verses, puzzle images and other content; the request contains the app's version number. When you open a passage or search the Bible, the request contains the passage reference or your search words; our server gets the text from Crossway's ESV API, so Crossway receives the reference or search words but not your IP address.
• Christian News (mobileapp.quantumdisciple.com). Loading stories sends nothing about you. When you open or vote in a poll, the app sends a random ID it created for that purpose (and, when you vote, your choice), so you can change your vote once and not vote twice. Our poll records keep only that ID and your choice. Story images can load directly from the publisher's website.
• Your account (mobileapp.quantumdisciple.com). Only if you create one or sign in: the account details and synced data described in section 3, and, when you use them, your Shape QDCM votes, suggestions, follows and notice choices, and your email signup and Email Preferences requests (Stay Connected, below). When the app comes to the foreground (at most every 15 minutes), it checks for the current topic poll, which sends nothing about you when you're signed out. A signed-in app also checks your notice inbox then, when you open the inbox, and right after you sign in.
• Usage data (mobileapp.quantumdisciple.com), only if you turn on Share Usage Data. The setting, "Share Usage Data To Help Improve QDCM Content," is in Me → Privacy and is off unless you turn it on; an earlier "Count Anonymous Usage Events" choice does not turn it on. While it is on, the app sends short usage events about our own content and features: that you opened one of our lessons, Daily Cases, Case Files, Faith + Future topics, Debate Lab scenarios, Skeptic Mode objections, answers, study paths, papers and other library items (such as videos and podcasts) or ministry pages, and whether it stayed on screen for 10 seconds; that you finished a lesson, Daily Case, Case File, Debate Lab scenario or study path session, or submitted a quiz (with the number of questions, never your answers or score); that a Shape QDCM poll was shown to you; and, in Explore, which sections were shown and which cards, search results, tools or learning paths you opened, and how many results a search found (never the words). Each event holds only its name and time, the ID of the public content, poll, Explore section, featured item or tool, small whole numbers like those, that it came from the iPhone app, and whether it came from a developer build of the app or from internal preview content (our TestFlight test builds show internal preview content by default; the App Store version never does). Our server adds the time it received the event and marks events from our staff's accounts so they are left out of statistics. Events never include anything you type, search for or write, titles, journal or notes text, or your answers. Events wait in the app's memory, never on disk, and are sent about 15 seconds after the first one, sooner when 20 are waiting, and when the app goes to the background. When you are signed in, our server links your events to your account through a code it derives from the account, so this data is pseudonymous, not anonymous. When you are signed out, the app sends a random install ID instead, created the first time usage is sent while you're signed out, kept on this iPhone (it isn't sent while you're signed in) and deleted when you turn the setting off. Our staff's screens show only statistics; the raw events stay on our server until they are deleted. We use it only for statistics that help us plan content, such as how many people finish content on a topic and Explore's "Popular Right Now" list, which appears only when at least 30 people are counted. Raw events are deleted after 90 days and the statistics, which identify no one, after 24 months. Turning the setting off stops sending right away. Details: website privacy policy, section 3.5.
• Stay Connected (QDCM Email Studio, operated by us). If you choose "Join The QDCM Email Community" in the app's signup form, the app sends the email address you enter, your first name if you enter one, the topics you check (none are checked for you) and that you used the iPhone app to QDCM Email Studio, our own email system on our server. When you're signed out, it goes straight to Email Studio through quantumdisciple.com, with no sign-in or account details; the app also loads the list of topics from there, which sends nothing about you. Nothing else goes with it: not your journal, notes, synced data, usage data or profile. Email Studio sends a confirmation email and adds you, for those topics only, after you click its link; when you do, it records the time and a short one-way code made from your IP address as a record of your consent. Like any web server, Email Studio's server also records the IP address and the address requested in its server log for every request. After you confirm, we send a series of three welcome emails over about five days, then only the topics you chose. Our email provider, SMTP2GO, delivers our emails, and every email has an unsubscribe link. Email Studio keeps your contact, its consent history and your topic choices under its own consent and unsubscribe rules, and an unsubscribe always wins. If you're signed in, the form starts with your account's email address and first name (you can change them) and goes through mobileapp.quantumdisciple.com, which passes it on with a random code for your account (never your username or other account details). Your account is linked to that email contact only after you confirm; until then the app shows nothing about that address except a "Send Again" button, which re-sends to the email address and topics this device kept from your signup (section 2), or opens the form if it kept none. The confirmation email for a signup made while signed in says that confirming also connects your account. Once linked, the app shows your email preferences and lets you turn topics off, turn topics on (after a confirmation email) or unsubscribe from all QDCM email. Deleting your account removes that link but does not unsubscribe your email address, so unsubscribe first if you want our emails to stop. To avoid asking too often, the app remembers whether you signed up, how many times you chose "Not Right Now," and when (with an account, this status syncs). Details: website privacy policy, section 3.1.
• AI assistant (abraham.cuwcs.com, operated by us). The assistant is available to signed-in accounts with AI access (currently our own team); a free account does not include it, but a device that already has AI conversations keeps the assistant. When you ask a question, your question is sent along with any passages, documents or notes you chose to attach, so the service can write an answer. Notes are sent only when you attach them. Journal text is sent only if you turn on AI reflection and confirm a preview showing exactly what will be sent.
• Ministry audio and papers (quantumdisciple.com). Playing a paper's audio or opening a paper loads it from our website.
• Voice features (Apple). When you speak a reference or question, speech is recognized on your device when it supports that. Otherwise Apple's speech recognition service processes it under Apple's privacy policy.
• Links you open. YouTube, podcast, store and giving links open those services, which have their own privacy policies.

Like any internet service, these servers see your device's IP address when they receive a request, and keep short-term technical logs, including the address requested, to keep the service working and secure. We do not use the information above to build a profile or advertise to you, and we never sell it.

5. What we don't do

• No advertising and no advertising or analytics SDKs.
• No tracking across other companies' apps or websites.
• No sign-in codes by QR, and no sign-in through other companies' accounts.
• No third-party analytics. Usage events (section 4) are sent only to our own content server, and only if you turn on Share Usage Data.
• No sending your suggestions, votes, follows, usage data, account details or journal to an AI service. Our staff can use our own AI server to help draft new content, but it receives only material our staff prepared (topic descriptions and instructions, our guidelines, excerpts from our own papers and staff notes, titles of our related content, and Bible references, never Bible text); every AI draft is reviewed by our staff, including theological review, before it can be published.

6. Permissions

The app asks for each permission only when you use the feature that needs it, and you can change it at any time in iOS Settings:

• Camera: to scan a study or speaking-event QR code. You can type the code instead.
• Microphone and speech recognition: to speak a Bible reference or question.
• Face ID: to lock My Faith Journal, if you turn that on.
• Notifications: reminders you choose to schedule, and, only if you turn on Topic Alerts On This iPhone (Me; off unless you turn it on, and iOS asks for permission only then), an alert titled "Quantum Disciple" saying "New QDCM content is ready" when the app finds a new "You Asked, We Built It" notice. It never names the topic, waits out your quiet hours, and is removed when you sign out or delete all data on the device. They are created on your device and never include your journal text.
• Photos: picking your own profile picture uses the iOS photo picker, which gives the app only the one photo you choose. Saving a wallpaper asks for permission to add photos.

7. Your choices and deleting your data

• Delete individual notes, AI conversations, documents, collections or journal entries in the app. If you're signed in, the deletion syncs to your other devices.
• Delete your whole journal in Me → My Faith Journal → Your journal, your choice. You can also export it there.
• Delete your account in Me → Account and data → Delete Account. This deletes your account and everything stored with it on our server, including your Shape QDCM follows, notice choices and notices and the usage events linked to your account. Your poll votes stay in the poll totals with no link to you, and your suggestions lose their "Why does this matter to you?" text and their link to you; their wording may stay as anonymous planning evidence. It also removes the link between your account and your email contact, but does not unsubscribe your email address. Data on your device stays until you delete it.
• Turn off Share Usage Data in Me → Privacy at any time; this also deletes the install ID. To get a copy of your Shape QDCM data and the usage events linked to your account, email us.
• Delete everything the app has stored on your device with Me → Account and data, or by deleting the app.
• To leave our email list, use the unsubscribe link in any of our emails, or, if your account is linked to your email, unsubscribe from all QDCM email in the app.

iPhone backups you have made may still contain data from your device until they are replaced. Deleted data may also remain in our server's backup copies until those copies are removed.

How long we keep data on our server: synced data and your account until you delete it; Daily Breadle games until you delete your account, or 400 days without an account; the link between your account and your email contact while your account exists (Email Studio keeps your email contact and consent history under its own rules, so that an unsubscribe is always honored); Shape QDCM vote and suggestion links to your account for 12 months (see section 3); follows, notice choices and notices while your account exists; usage events 90 days and statistics made from them 24 months; abuse-prevention counters about two days; records of our staff's editorial work on topics and suggestions (who moderated, topic links, excluded votes), which don't include your name, email or account ID, stay with the topic, with staff notes and reasons about a suggestion removed after 12 months (a rejection keeps only its category) and the detailed staff log deleted after 24 months (details in our website privacy policy).

8. Children

The app is not directed to children under 13. You must be 13 or older to create an account, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

9. Changes

If we change how the app handles information, we will update this page and its effective date before the change takes effect.