Privacy policy

Who this covers

This policy covers the Bible Concordance app for Windows and the Bible Concordance app for Android, and this website (bible4me.org). The apps are made by GhostClaw (“the developer”) and are free. See the licence and terms.

What stays on your device

These are kept only on your own computer or phone, in the app's own storage, and are never sent to the developer or to anyone else by the app:

• your bookmarks, highlights, notes, tags and reading-plan progress, and your reading streak;
• on Windows, your sermons, slides, notices, songs and settings;
• the Bibles, commentaries, books and other files you choose to add or download;
• the backups you choose to save, and any key you type in for an optional online service (see below).

Uninstalling the Android app deletes its stored data. On Windows the data lives in the app's data folder, which you can back up or delete yourself. Because the developer never holds a copy, it cannot recover your notes if you lose them: save a backup now and then.

What we collect

Nothing. There is no sign-up, no profile, no advertising identifier, no analytics or crash-reporting service, and no location, contacts, camera, microphone or phone-number access.

When the apps do use the internet

Everything built in works offline. The apps go online only for the things below, and only when you use them or leave them switched on. When your device contacts one of these services, that service can see your internet address and the ordinary details of the request, as any website would, under its own privacy policy. The developer does not receive that information.

• Looking for a new version. The Android app asks bible4me.org (hosted by GitHub Pages) once a day for a small file that names the newest version; you can switch this off or check by hand under More → Updates. The Windows app can check GitHub for a new version. The Android version from Google Play does not look for updates itself, and neither does the Windows version from the Microsoft Store: those stores update them. Nothing about you or your device is sent beyond the request itself. Installing is always your choice.
• Optional downloads you choose: more Bibles and library books (from eBible.org, CrossWire and the other free sources named in the app), the nature photos, the “Advanced search” and “Original words” packs, and (in the Android app) the Bible story pictures and the children's pictures (all from GitHub), and Bible pictures (from Wikimedia Commons). What is downloaded is the file you picked.
• Android: additional stories (optional). When you tap Fetch additional stories, the app downloads one small file of stories, “Verses for…” pages and children's pages (with their pictures) from this project's page on GitHub, checks it, and keeps it on the phone. Nothing is sent about you beyond the request itself.
• Windows only: live NIV, NKJV and ESV (optional). If you type in your own key from the publisher's service (api.bible or api.esv.org), the app sends the passage you ask for, with your key, to that service so it can show you the text. The key is stored on your computer. The publisher's own terms and privacy policy apply to that service.
• Windows only: looking up song words (optional). When you ask for a song's words, its title and artist are sent to the lookup service the app uses. Nothing is sent otherwise.
• Links. Links to YouTube Music and similar sites open in your browser or app, and are governed by that site's policy. In the same way, the Android app's Other links list opens websites where e-Sword, MySword and MyBible files can be found in your browser; the app itself never downloads from them.

Keeping your phone and computer in step

If you pair the Android app with the Windows app, they talk directly to each other over your own home Wi-Fi, using a code you type in. Your bookmarks, highlights, notes and reading plans do not go through the internet or through any cloud, and the developer cannot see them. This link between your own devices is not encrypted, as is usual on a home network. The computer answers only devices on your own network, only while the Windows app is open and you have allowed phone sync, and the phone has to be paired with the code first. Please use it on a Wi-Fi network you trust.

Pictures on your phone (Windows)

The Windows app's Content Factory has a button, On my phone. While you have switched it on, the computer shows the pictures and videos you saved on a small web page on your own home Wi-Fi, which a phone opens by scanning a code. The page can only be looked at: nothing can be changed, uploaded or deleted from the phone. It answers only devices on your own network, only with the secret code in its address, only for the Pictures and Videos folders of the Content Factory, and it switches itself off after an hour (or when you switch it off or close the app). Nothing goes through the internet or through us, and, as on any home network, the link is not encrypted, so please use it on a Wi-Fi network you trust. If you choose, Settings → Keep in step can also copy your finished pictures into the shared folder you picked (OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox); that is your own folder and your own account with them.

The Windows app also has the optional Fetch additional stories button: it downloads one small file of stories and pages (with their pictures) from this project's page on GitHub, checks it, and keeps it on the computer. Nothing is sent about you beyond the request itself. The Content Factory's two optional photo packs and its free music recordings download only when you ask for them.

Android permissions, and why

• Internet — for the optional downloads and the update check above.
• Notifications and alarms — for the daily reading reminder you set. Start at boot and ignore battery optimisation — so the reminder still arrives after a restart and on time. (The version from Google Play has no exact alarms and does not ask to ignore battery optimisation, so its reminder may arrive a few minutes after the time you chose.)
• Install apps (the file from this website only, not the Google Play version) — so that, when you tap Install on an update, the app can hand the downloaded file to Android, which asks you to confirm.
• Keep awake — so that the reminder and a download can finish when the screen is off.
• Files you add or save go through Android's own file picker; the app can open only the files you pick.

Children

The apps are for anyone and are not aimed at collecting anything from children. Since nothing is collected from anyone, there is nothing to collect from a child either.

This website

The website is a set of plain pages hosted by GitHub Pages. It has no sign-up, no adverts and no analytics of its own. GitHub, as the host, may keep ordinary server logs under its own privacy statement. Downloads are served by GitHub Releases.

Your rights

Because the developer holds no personal information about you, there is nothing for the developer to show, correct, export or delete. You are in control of your data on your own device. If you believe otherwise, or you have a privacy question, please email the developer and you will get a straight answer.

Changes to this policy

If the apps ever start to work differently in a way that affects your privacy, this page will be updated first and the date at the top changed.