This Privacy Policy explains what information SermonWave ("SermonWave", "we", "us") collects when you use the SermonWave website, dashboard, listener pages, the SW1 device and related services (the "Service"), and how we use, share and protect it. It applies to church account users, to listeners and to visitors of sermonwave.com.
1. Information we collect
Church accounts
- Account information: your name, email address, password (stored only as a secure hash), role, and the users you invite.
- Church profile: church name, address, city, time zone, website, logo, service times, social links and other details you enter or ask us to fill in automatically.
- Billing information: your plan, subscription status and invoices. Stripe collects and stores your payment card details. We do not receive or store full card numbers. For SW1 plans we collect a shipping name, address and phone number.
- Customer content: sermon and service audio captured by your web device or SW1 device, and the recordings, transcripts, translations, synthesized translated audio, summaries, speaker details and images created from it.
- Device information: for SW1 and web devices, device identifiers, status, audio levels, software version, network information and diagnostic logs, used to keep devices running and to support you.
- Usage information: sign-in times, pages and features used in the dashboard, and IP address and browser information for security and troubleshooting.
Listeners
- No account needed. Listeners can use listener pages without giving a name or email.
- Listener identifier and preferences: a random identifier and your preferences (language, theme, audio on/off, listening history) are kept in your browser's local storage so the page remembers you.
- Listening sessions: which church, event and language you listened to, when, and your device type (mobile, tablet or desktop). We store a one-way hash of your IP address rather than the address itself. We use your IP address to estimate your approximate city and region, which appear in aggregated listener statistics and maps for churches.
- Location for "near me": if you use the church finder's "near me" feature, your browser asks for permission to share your location. It is used only to find nearby churches.
- What you choose to send: if you submit a prayer request, a contact request, a testimony or a search, we collect what you enter (such as your name, email or phone) and share it with the church you sent it to.
Website visitors
- Information you submit through our contact form, signup form or sample-request form.
- Analytics about how the site is used (pages visited, referring site, approximate location, device and browser), collected with Google Analytics.
- Signals collected by Google reCAPTCHA to protect our forms from spam and abuse.
2. How we use information
- to provide the Service: live captions, translation and translated audio, archives, summaries, search, and church and sermon pages;
- to create and manage accounts, run free trials, process payments and ship SW1 devices;
- to send service emails, such as your welcome email, trial reminders, receipts and important notices;
- to give churches aggregated listener statistics;
- to monitor, secure, debug and improve the Service;
- to respond to your questions and support requests; and
- to comply with law and enforce our Terms of Service.
We do not sell personal information, and we do not use customer content for advertising.
3. How AI processing works
Speech recognition, machine translation, text-to-speech and sermon summaries run on AI servers that SermonWave operates itself. Sermon audio, transcripts and translations are not sent to third-party AI providers for processing. Audio travels from your SW1 device or web device to our servers over encrypted connections.
One exception: if you use the optional church profile auto-fill in the dashboard, we send your church name, location and the text of your church's public website to a third-party AI provider (Anthropic) to draft your profile. No sermon content is sent. You can skip auto-fill and enter your profile by hand.
We do not use your audio, transcripts, translations or other content to train or tune AI models, and we do not provide it to others for that purpose.
4. Public pages
Churches choose whether each sermon is public, unlisted or private. Public sermons, including transcripts, translations, summaries and audio, appear on church and sermon pages, may be listed in sitemaps, and may be indexed by search engines and AI assistants. Unlisted sermons can be viewed by anyone with the link. Private sermons are visible only to the church's dashboard users. Search engines may keep copies of public pages after a sermon is made private or deleted.
5. How we share information
We share information only as described here:
- With the church: listener statistics and anything a listener chooses to send to a church.
- Service providers that process data for us under contract:
- Stripe: payments and billing.
- Email delivery: we send email from our own mail server, and a third-party SMTP relay is used as a backup.
- Google: website analytics (Google Analytics) and spam protection (reCAPTCHA).
- ip-api.com: approximate city and region lookups from listener IP addresses.
- Anthropic: church profile auto-fill only, as described in section 3.
- Shipping carriers: delivery of SW1 devices.
- Legal reasons: when required by law or legal process, or to protect the rights, safety and property of our users, the public or SermonWave.
- Business transfers: as part of a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, under this policy's protections.
- With your consent or at your direction.
6. Cookies and local storage
- Dashboard: a session cookie keeps you signed in. It is required for the dashboard to work.
- Listener pages: local storage in your browser keeps your listener identifier and preferences. You can clear it at any time in your browser settings. If you do, the page will treat you as a new listener.
- Marketing site: Google Analytics and reCAPTCHA set cookies. You can block cookies in your browser or use Google's opt-out tools. Blocking reCAPTCHA may prevent signup and contact forms from working.
7. Retention
- Customer content is kept while the church's account is active, or until the church deletes it.
- After an account is closed, we delete customer content within 30 days unless the church asks us to export it first. Backups are kept for 12 months and then overwritten on a rolling basis.
- Listener session records are kept for 12 months, then deleted or aggregated.
- We keep billing records as long as tax and accounting law requires.
8. Your choices and deletion requests
- Church users can view and update account and profile information in the dashboard, change sermon visibility, and delete sermons.
- To request a copy of your data, a correction, or deletion of your account or your personal information, email team@sermonwave.com from the address on the account. We will respond within 30 days. We may need to verify your identity first.
- Listeners can clear their browser's local storage at any time. To ask for something you sent to a church (such as a prayer request) to be deleted, contact that church or us.
- Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights, such as to object to or restrict processing. You may also have the right to complain to a data protection authority. We honor these rights as required by applicable law.
- You can unsubscribe from non-essential emails with the link in the email. We will still send essential service emails, such as billing notices.
9. Security
We protect information with encrypted connections, hashed passwords, access controls and network isolation for our AI servers and devices. No system is completely secure. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you as required by law.
10. Children
Church accounts are for adults (18+). Listener pages are for general audiences and do not ask for names or contact details. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (or the age set by local law). Churches should not submit children's personal information through the Service, including in forms. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
11. Where data is processed
SermonWave is based in the United States, and data is processed and stored in the United States. If you use the Service from another country, your information will be transferred to the United States. We apply the protections described in this policy.
12. Churches and listeners
For customer content and listener submissions, each church decides what to record, publish and collect. SermonWave processes this content for the church to provide the Service. Churches are responsible for telling their congregations about recording and publishing. Listeners with questions about how a church uses their information should also contact that church.
13. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. We will post the new version here and update the "Last updated" date. If a change is material, we will also notify account owners by email or in the dashboard before it takes effect.
14. Contact
Questions or requests: team@sermonwave.com
SermonWave
[Mailing address]