Draft awaiting legal review. This page describes how Tethered works today, but it has not yet been reviewed by a lawyer and may change before launch.
Privacy Policy
Last updated: November 12, 2026
Tethered (“we”, “us”) makes the Tethered app and this website, tetheredbible.com. This policy explains what we collect, why, who can see it, and the choices you have. Questions: support@tetheredbible.com.
The short version
- Nobody sees who struggles. No pastor, church role or other member can see who pressed the help button, who wrote an anonymous prayer request or group message, or who asked a question during a sermon.
- You don’t need to give us your name or email to use Tethered.
- We don’t sell your information, show ads, or track you across other apps and websites.
- You can delete your account and its data from inside the app at any time.
Your account
When you first open the app, it creates a private account that isn’t linked to your name, email or phone number. If you choose to add an email, we use it only to send you sign-in codes and important account messages, and so a church you set up can’t be lost with your phone.
What we store, and who can see it
| What | Why | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|
| Optional first name, display name for church chat, theme, text size, and a push notification token | To personalize the app and send notifications you turn on | You. Your church sees the chat name you choose next to church-wide chat messages. |
| Optional birthday (month and day, never the year) and age range | Birthday greetings, and picking a fitting verse of the day | You. If you choose to share your birthday with your church, its members can see the month and day. |
| Which days you read the daily story | Your reading streak and the perks it unlocks | You |
| Help-button presses and replies, and your accountability partners | To alert the partners you chose and show their replies | You and the partners you chose. Never your church or pastor. |
| Prayer requests | To show them on the prayer wall | Everyone who can see that wall, without your name. Stored with your account only so limits and moderation work; moderators never see who wrote a request. |
| Church membership, role, chat messages, group messages, RSVPs and reading plan progress | To run your church’s features | Your church. Church-wide chat shows your chosen name; group messages are anonymous to everyone. |
| Questions asked during a live sermon | To show the preacher a question list | Your church, without anyone’s identity. We store only the text, church, sermon and time, with no link to who asked. |
| Profile photo (optional) | To show next to your name | Your accountability partners and your church |
| Reports and blocks | To keep the community safe | Moderators see the reported post, never who reported it or who wrote it. Nobody can see who you blocked. |
| A count of your Bible Helper questions each day | To apply daily limits | Only our server |
Notes
Your notes are stored on your phone. If you turn on the optional backup, your notes are encrypted on your phone with a passphrase only you know before they’re uploaded. We can’t read them, and we can’t reset your passphrase.
The Bible Helper (AI)
When you ask the Bible Helper a question, your question, the earlier messages in that conversation and any passage you asked about are sent to our server and to our AI provider, Anthropic, to write the answer. We don’t send your name, email, church or anything else about you. Your conversation history is kept on your phone, and you can clear it in Settings. Our server keeps no copy of the text. It keeps a count of your questions each day (for the daily limit) and a log of which AI model answered, which isn’t linked to your account. Anthropic processes the request to produce the answer under its commercial terms.
When a pastor uses “Prepare with AI” for a sermon, only the topic, date and time are sent.
Microphone and speech (Auto Sermon Mode)
Only preachers who turn on Auto Sermon Mode use the microphone. Speech is turned into text on the phone itself to spot Bible references. Tethered doesn’t record or store what it hears and doesn’t upload the audio or the text. Only the passage the preacher sends is shared with the church.
Purchases and church licenses
Personal subscriptions are handled by Apple. We use RevenueCat to know which plan is active; we never see your payment details. Church licenses are arranged directly with the church; card payments for them, when offered, are handled by Stripe on this website.
Service providers
We use Supabase to host our database and server functions, Anthropic for the Bible Helper, Expo to deliver push notifications, RevenueCat for subscriptions, Stripe for church payments, and Cloudflare to host this website. They process information only to provide their service to us.
Children
Tethered is for people aged 13 and up. It isn’t directed to children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child under 13 is using Tethered, email us and we’ll delete the account.
Deleting your account
In the app, go to Settings → Delete account. This permanently deletes your account and the data tied to it on our servers: profile, reading history, partners, help-button history, prayer requests, church membership and messages, photos, notes backup, reports and blocks. It also clears the app on your phone. Copies may remain in our hosting provider’s encrypted backups for a short time before they’re overwritten. Anonymous sermon questions can’t be traced to you, so they stay with the sermon until the church deletes it. A pastor needs to hand the church to someone else, or ask us to close it, first.
Your choices and rights
You can change or remove optional information in Settings, turn notifications off, clear Bible Helper history, and delete your account. Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct or delete your information; email us to use them.
Security
Information is sent over encrypted connections. Our database is set up so that each person and each church can reach only what they’re allowed to, and we test those rules before every change.
Changes
If we make an important change to this policy, we’ll tell you in the app before it takes effect.