Privacy Policy

Test My Faith (“TMF”) is an interactive Bible walking game. This policy explains what information TMF uses, why, who else handles it, how long it is kept and how you can delete it.

TMF is operated by Joshua Caleb, a sole trader trading as Test My Faith, who is the controller of your information. Contact: testmyfaithapp@gmail.com. Postal address: 73 Grange Lane, Thurnby, Leicester LE7 9PH, United Kingdom.

The short version

• You can play without an account. Your Journeys are then kept on your device.
• An account uses your email address only to sign you in with a one-time code. There is no password.
• Your account keeps your Journey history only if you choose to let it, with two separate choices you can change at any time. Otherwise your Journeys stay on your device.
• Your location is used on your device to measure your walk, only during a Journey you start. In the iPhone and Android apps it continues while your screen is locked until that Journey ends. TMF does not store your route or GPS trail. A Route Walk sends your starting point to a route-planning service to create the route.
• What you are carrying, your Spiritual Focus and prayer choices stay on your device for the current Journey. They are never published or added to your account.
• If you publish a score, the leaderboard shows only a TMF-generated name (such as “Faithful Walker 4821”), a TMF avatar and game details. It never shows your email or anything you typed.
• You can delete your account at any time in the app, or at /delete-account.

Information TMF uses

Without an account

Your Journey progress, results, history and settings are stored in your browser or app storage on your device. They are not sent to TMF unless you sign in. TMF still receives the technical information that any website receives when your device connects to it, such as your IP address (see “Technical information” below).

Your account

• Email address and account ID, used to sign you in with a one-time code. Your email is private and never shown to other players.
• Sign-in session: a token saved on your device so you stay signed in. Signing out removes it from your device.
• Saved Journey results and progress, only if you choose (see “Faith and wellbeing” below), so they survive a lost or new phone. This covers the Journey, difficulty, walk or run, step target, distance, duration, completion time, scores, answer outcomes, clues used, pause and interruption counts, and movement-quality counts. It never includes your GPS positions, your route, or the words of your answers.
• Your choices: when you confirmed you are 13 or older, and whether and when you allowed your account to keep your Journey history and your Carrying Journeys.
• Your TMF identity: a name TMF generates from approved words and four digits, plus the avatar you pick from TMF’s approved set. You cannot type a public name.
• Premium status, so TMF knows which Journeys you can play. When you subscribe on the website, TMF also keeps the payment provider’s confirmation of your subscription: which plan, its dates and its status. TMF never sees or stores your payment card, which the payment provider handles.
• Questions you ask, if you use “Ask about this Journey” (when it is available). The text of your question, with the Journey’s own text and Bible verses it relates to, is sent to our AI provider to write an answer. TMF does not keep your question or the answer, and does not send your name, email, location or results. TMF keeps only a count of how many questions your account has asked, to apply fair limits.
• Feedback you choose to send (a star rating and optional comment about a Journey). Feedback is private and never published. Please don’t include personal details in comments.

Account data is linked to your account. Some Journeys have themes such as grief, anxiety or money. If you play one of these “Carrying” Journeys while signed in, and you have allowed your account to keep Carrying Journeys, your saved results record which Journey you played. Your own words about what you are carrying are never saved.

The public leaderboard

Publishing a score is optional and needs Premium, which is not on sale yet. A published score shows the public name you chose, or your TMF name if you did not choose one, with your avatar, rank, score, the Journey, difficulty, walk or run, step target and clues used. It never shows your email, account ID, completion time, duration, location or route. You can change or remove your public name in your profile. Deleting your account removes your public name and published scores.

Location

• During a Journey your device’s location service (GPS) measures how far you have walked. TMF only uses location while a Journey is running and you have allowed it.
• Screen locked (iPhone and Android apps): so you can walk with your phone in your pocket, the apps keep measuring the Journey you started while the screen is locked or another app is open. Android shows a notification and iPhone shows its location indicator while this happens. It stops when the Journey ends or you stop it, and TMF never uses your location when no Journey is running. The website measures only while its page is open.
• Route Walk only: to create a walking route, your exact starting coordinates, the distance you chose and walk/run are sent to TMF’s server. TMF passes them to openrouteservice (operated by HeiGIT gGmbH, Germany), which returns the route. Your account and email are not sent, and openrouteservice receives the request from TMF’s server, not from your device. TMF does not store your starting point or route on its servers. Free Walk sends no location.
• Your current route is kept on your device for up to 12 hours so an interrupted Journey can resume. Your GPS trail is never saved or sent.
• Map images are loaded from TMF’s own website.

Steps (iPhone and Android apps)

• An indoor or treadmill Journey counts your steps with your phone’s motion sensor (Motion & Fitness on iPhone, Physical activity on Android) and, if you allow it, reads your step count from Apple Health or Health Connect, for example from a watch. TMF reads step counts only: never heart rate, sleep or any other health data, and it never writes to Apple Health or Health Connect.
• Steps you typed in by hand in a health app are not counted. When you finish an indoor Journey, your saved result includes the number of steps that were measured.
• Steps leaderboard (not available yet; only if you join once it is): your daily step totals from the day you joined are stored and shown under your TMF-generated name and avatar. No samples, source apps, devices, route or location are sent. Leaving the steps leaderboard deletes your stored totals.

Answers and voice

TMF checks your answers on your device. TMF does not receive or store the words you type or say. Your results keep only the outcome and which Bible ideas your answer included. If you choose to answer by voice, TMF uses the speech recognition built into your browser or phone. In the iPhone app, recognition happens on your iPhone only. In the Android app TMF asks for on-device recognition, but your phone’s speech service (usually Google) may still process your voice on its own servers under its own privacy policy, and so may your browser’s (for example Google in Chrome) on the website. TMF asks for microphone access only when you first use voice answers, listens only during an answer window, and never records or keeps your voice. In hands-free mode the Android app shows a notification while it is listening with the screen off. You can always type instead.

What you are carrying, Spiritual Focus and prayer

The optional “What are you carrying today?” choice and anything you type there, your Spiritual Focus choices and prayer choices shape that Journey’s reflections on your device. TMF keeps them only for the current Journey on your device so it can resume. They are never sent to TMF, saved to your account, published, spoken aloud or used for analytics.

Faith and wellbeing: sensitive information

Because TMF is a Bible game, an account with TMF, and the Journeys you play, may suggest your religious beliefs, and the “Carrying” Journeys you play may suggest something about your wellbeing (for example grief or anxiety). The law treats information that reveals religious beliefs or health as special category data, which needs extra protection. TMF never publishes which Journeys you play and never uses this for advertising or profiling.

So TMF keeps Journey history in your account only with your explicit consent, asked for when you first sign in, with two separate choices that are never ticked for you:

• Journey history: your results and Journeys in progress are kept in your account.
• Carrying Journeys: these are kept too. This choice needs the first one.

If you leave them unticked, your account still works and your Journeys stay on your device only. TMF’s database refuses to store history your choices do not cover. You can change your choices at any time in Account, then Privacy & Data. Turning a choice off withdraws your consent and deletes the copies your account holds for it (and any published scores for those Journeys). Journeys on your device are kept. Feedback you send about a Journey your choices do not cover is stored without your account.

Technical information

• Like any website, TMF’s hosting and database providers receive your IP address and basic request details when your device connects. Short-lived copies are used to deliver the service, prevent abuse and keep it secure (for example, limiting repeated requests). TMF does not build profiles from them.
• On the website, TMF uses Vercel Web Analytics to count page visits. It uses no cookies. TMF sends it only the page address without any query details, and never sign-in pages. Vercel records the page, referrer, browser, device type, operating system and approximate location derived from your IP address, without storing the IP address.

Who handles your information

TMF does not sell your information or use it for advertising. Some providers process data outside your country. Where the law requires it, TMF relies on the provider’s standard safeguards for international transfers.

Why TMF uses your information

• Providing the game and your account: sign-in, your TMF identity, Premium status, measuring a Journey on your device and planning a Route Walk. This is necessary to perform our agreement with you.
• Keeping your Journey history and Carrying Journeys in your account, and publishing scores you choose to publish: your explicit consent (UK GDPR articles 6(1)(a) and 9(2)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time.
• Recording your 13+ confirmation and your choices, so we can show what you agreed to: our legitimate interests and our accountability duty.
• Keeping TMF secure, preventing abuse, and counting page visits: our legitimate interests.
• Meeting legal obligations, for example tax records once purchases exist.

How long it is kept

• Account, TMF identity and your recorded choices: until you delete your account. Results, history and published scores: until you withdraw the choice that covers them or delete your account.
• Journey in progress: until the Journey ends; resume information on your device lasts at most 12 hours.
• Feedback sent while signed in: deleted with your account.
• Feedback sent without an account is not linked to anyone and is kept for 90 days, then deleted automatically.
• Provider security and request logs are kept for the provider’s limited log period. Database backups are overwritten on the provider’s backup cycle.

Deleting your account

In the app: Account, then Privacy & Data, then Delete Account. On the web, including if you no longer have the app: the Delete account page, where you confirm with a code sent to your email. Deletion is permanent. It removes your sign-in, TMF identity, published scores, saved results, history, progress, Premium status and feedback linked to your account. It also clears this device’s copy when you delete from the app. Results kept only on another device stay there until you remove the app or clear its data. Deleting your account first cancels any live website subscription, so you are not charged again. A subscription bought through the App Store or Google Play would need cancelling there.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to the use of your information, and to receive a copy of it. In the app you can download your account data (Account, then Privacy & Data, then Download my data) and delete your account. For anything else, contact testmyfaithapp@gmail.com. You may also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk) or your local data protection authority.

Children

You must be at least 13 to use TMF, and you confirm this before an account is created. If you believe a younger child has created an account, contact us and we will delete it. TMF is designed so that younger users are protected by default: location is used only during a Journey you start and is never shown to anyone; there is no chat, no public messages and no public name you type; publishing a score is optional and shows only a TMF-generated name; there is no advertising and no profiling. If you are under 18, please talk to a parent or carer about where and when you walk.

Security

Data travels over encrypted connections. Account data is protected by row-level access rules so each player can reach only their own records. Leaderboard data passes through a server allowlist. No method is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information.

Changes

If this policy changes in a meaningful way, we will update the date above and tell you in the app.

Contact

Joshua Caleb, a sole trader trading as Test My Faith, 73 Grange Lane, Thurnby, Leicester LE7 9PH, United Kingdom. Email: testmyfaithapp@gmail.com.