Your reading and your information
This policy explains how the Eternal Word Bible Handbook website and iOS app handle information. The app includes its Bible text and study library for offline use; the website offers an optional offline download. You do not need an account to read or save studies on your device.
With sync off, your personal reading history and saved notes stay in the browser or app on your device. Choosing account sync sends that account’s saved work and progress to our service. Online study answers are a separate, optional feature. Opening external links, sharing content, contacting support, and operating-system backups may also transfer information as described below.
Your bookmarks, highlights, and personal reading notes are not included in requests to the study assistant. If you type personal information into a question yourself, that information is sent with the question.
Information kept on your device
The browser or app saves your studies, worksheets, saved source passages and answers, bookmarks, highlights, personal notes, memory verses, reading-plan progress, reading position and history, and preferences locally. Guest work stays separate from signed-in work unless you choose to import it. Local storage is not an additional password-protected vault: someone using the same device profile may be able to access locally saved information.
You can export a backup or an individual study and choose where to keep or share it. These files contain readable study content; anyone with a copy can read it. Your operating system may also include app data in a device backup, depending on your Apple backup settings. A backup or restoration handled by Apple is separate from synchronization provided by this app.
You can remove items in Saved, Memory, and My Study Desk. Clearing browser data or deleting the app removes that device’s local copy; a copy may remain in an exported file, a device backup, or an account with sync enabled. Manage device backups through your Apple settings. Removing the app does not delete your Eternal Word cloud account.
Optional account sync
Signing in and turning on sync lets you continue your personal study on the website and connected devices. The service receives the account’s studies and entries, worksheet answers, saved source text and answers, notes, bookmarks, highlights, memory work and review schedule, reading-plan progress, reading position and history, and trail progress. That content may reveal religious beliefs or other sensitive information. Saved work is not automatically sent to the study assistant.
Where it is offered, you can sign in with your own email address and password. An existing account can also be reached through the website’s hosted ChatGPT sign-in, and in the iPhone and iPad app you can use Sign in with Apple. Eternal Word uses a stable account identifier to keep each person’s records separate. For ChatGPT and Apple sign-in, your password for that provider is never sent to Eternal Word. Connected apps and browsers use revocable device credentials. We store device labels, connection and last-use times, expiration times, record revisions, and synchronization receipts needed to process changes and resolve conflicts. Device credentials are stored as hashes on the server.
Email and password sign-in
Email sign-in is optional. You can read and study without any account, and your work then stays on your device. When email sign-in is available, creating an account starts with your email address: Eternal Word emails you a link, and you choose your password only after opening it. An account created this way gets its own random account identifier. Eternal Word does not match or merge accounts by email address, including Apple or ChatGPT accounts. You can also add email sign-in to an existing ChatGPT or app account while signed in to it; that keeps the same account and study.
For email sign-in, your email address is stored on our server, encrypted, so that you can sign in with it and so that Eternal Word can send you account emails: address verification, password reset links, and notices when your password or sign-in address changes. A keyed one-way value derived from the address is used to find your account when you sign in. Your password itself is never stored: the server keeps only a one-way Argon2id verifier hash (salted and deliberately slow), which can check a password you type but cannot be turned back into it. We also store when the address was verified and when the password was last changed. Signing in from a browser keeps a revocable device credential in a secure, HttpOnly cookie for up to 30 days, the same as an app-approved browser. Resetting a forgotten password signs out the browsers and apps that used email sign-in. Changing your password signs out your other email sign-ins, and when email can be sent, Eternal Word notifies your sign-in address.
Password AutoFill: the Eternal Word app declares this website in Apple’s standard web-credentials association, so that a password you save for Eternal Word in your device’s password manager (for example, iCloud Keychain) can be offered in both the app and the website. The saved password is kept by your password manager, not by Eternal Word.
Account emails are sent only for account purposes: confirming an address to create an account or add email sign-in, a password reset link, confirming a new sign-in address, and notices that your password or sign-in address changed. There is no marketing email. These messages are sent through Resend, an email delivery service, which receives the recipient address and the message. Each link works once and expires (30 minutes for a password reset, 60 minutes otherwise). The secret part of a link is in the part of the address that browsers do not send to our server, and Eternal Word stores only a one-way hash of it. Opening a link changes nothing until you finish the step on the page. Pending email requests, including the encrypted address they were sent to, are removed after they expire. The record of a sent email keeps no readable address or link after it is accepted for delivery. To limit misuse and keep within the sending limits, short-lived counters are linked to a one-way hash of your network address and a keyed one-way value of the email address; they expire within about a day.
Sign in with Apple
Eternal Word asks Apple for no name and no email address. Apple gives us an identifier for your Apple ID that is specific to this app; we store it only as a one-way hash. An account created with Sign in with Apple is separate from a website sign-in account; we do not match accounts by email address.
Apple also issues a credential that lets us check whether you still use Sign in with Apple with this app and revoke that authorization when you delete your account. We keep it on our server, encrypted, for as long as the account exists and until any deletion has finished. Apple may notify our service if you stop using Sign in with Apple with this app or delete your Apple Account; we then end the app and browser sign-ins that came from it. If your Apple Account was deleted, we also delete the Eternal Word cloud data that belonged to it, unless that account also has a verified email sign-in: then the account and its study stay available through email sign-in, and only the Apple sign-ins end. This is separate from asking Eternal Word to delete your cloud account, which removes every sign-in method and the cloud study of that account.
Using the website with an app sign-in
If you are signed in to the app, you can also use the website by approving the browser in the app: the browser shows a code and a number to compare, and you approve it while signed in. The approved browser receives the same kind of revocable device credential, kept in a secure browser cookie for up to 30 days, and appears among your devices under the name the browser reported. Signing out on the website ends that browser’s credential when the website can reach our service; if it cannot, the credential remains valid on the server until it expires or you disconnect it from another device.
To limit misuse of sign-in and pairing, the service keeps short-lived attempt counters linked to a one-way hash of your network address; they expire after about ten minutes. Sign-in requests are kept for up to a day to block replayed requests, and pairing requests are removed within about an hour after they expire.
Sync requests use encrypted connections. This is cloud storage operated by Eternal Word and its hosting providers, not end-to-end encrypted storage. Account sync is optional; you may keep guest studies on your device and use exported backups instead. We do not sell this information or use it for advertising tracking.
Export, sign out, and deletion
Use Saved → Account and sync on the website, or Saving and account in the app, to inspect sync status, export data, disconnect a device, sign out, or delete your Eternal Word cloud data. Signing out hides that account’s workspace and returns to guest work; it does not delete the cloud account or every local copy. Disconnecting a device prevents further authenticated sync from its credential, but cannot remotely erase information already downloaded to that device.
Deleting an individual synced item marks it as deleted for the other devices. Synchronization receipts may retain earlier content while the account exists, so that interrupted operations can be retried safely. Full cloud-account deletion removes the account’s stored study records, synchronization receipts, device credentials and link codes, and for email sign-in the sign-in credential (the encrypted address and the password verifier hash), any pending or queued account emails and their links, and every session that came from email sign-in. After deletion, that email address and password no longer sign in. A minimal pseudonymous deletion marker is retained indefinitely to prevent an old device from silently restoring deleted cloud data.
For an account created with Sign in with Apple, deletion also revokes this app’s Apple authorization. Before deletion starts, the app or browser saves a random deletion receipt on your device so it can check the result if the connection drops; the service stores that receipt only as a hash. If Apple cannot be reached, the service keeps the deletion request with the encrypted Apple credential needed to finish it, and reports the deletion as pending rather than complete until the revocation succeeds. There is no automatic background retry. Checking the deletion’s status with the saved receipt only reports where it stands; the revocation is tried again when you choose to retry with that receipt (which works even after you are signed out), or when you next use Sign in with Apple with this app. If Apple tells our service that you stopped using Sign in with Apple with this app or deleted your Apple Account, the pending request is settled without a further revocation. Until the request is settled, the encrypted Apple credential and the request remain on our server; the credential is removed as soon as it is settled, and the request and its receipt hashes about 30 days after that. A new account with the same Apple ID cannot be created until the earlier deletion has finished.
For an account with email sign-in and no Apple sign-in, the browser or app also saves a random deletion receipt first, and the service stores only its hash, for about 30 days after the deletion. The deletion completes in one step.
Cloud deletion does not delete your unrelated sign-in-provider account (your Apple Account or website sign-in account) or your email mailbox, exported files, operating-system backups, or copies already on other devices. If you choose to keep a local copy, it stays on that device. Starting a new cloud workspace later requires an explicit choice; your previous cloud records are not restored automatically. Hosting providers may retain operational or backup records under their applicable service terms.
When you use the study assistant
Before the first online question is sent, the app asks for your permission. When you send a question, it sends the following to Eternal Word Study over an encrypted connection:
- The question you enter.
- Up to six recent messages from the current conversation, so a follow-up question can be understood.
- The selected book, chapter, or passage and the relevant app page context.
Eternal Word Study processes this information, selects relevant study material, and sends the necessary question, conversation context, and study material to Anthropic to prepare an answer. A suitable cached or prepared answer may be returned without a new Anthropic request.
Questions and conversations can reveal religious beliefs or other sensitive information. Send only what is needed for your Bible question. Avoid names, contact details, passwords, health information, and private details about yourself or another person.
You can withdraw permission in Study → Settings & about → Allow online study answers. Turning the option off prevents further questions from being sent and cancels an active request. It cannot recall information already transmitted.
Conversations, caching, and service records
In the app
The app keeps the current conversation in memory while it is open, including after you close the question sheet. You can use Clear conversation to remove it. An answer you explicitly save in My Study Desk becomes a saved study item and remains there until you remove it; account sync includes that saved copy. Clearing the conversation does not delete saved answers. The app’s assistant network session does not save a persistent local request cache or cookie store.
At Eternal Word Study
The answer service does not maintain a stored conversation transcript. Eligible, standalone, nonpersonal Bible questions can share a completed answer cache. The cache stores the answer, an opaque hash used to find a matching request, and creation and expiration times; it does not store the original question or conversation as readable text. Requests with conversation history or detected personal information are excluded from this cache.
A cached answer is eligible for reuse for 24 hours. Expired entries are no longer returned and are removed during subsequent cache maintenance. The cache has a size limit.
The service receives ordinary connection information, including your IP address. It uses time-limited request counters associated with a protected hash of that address to manage usage and prevent abuse. Expired counters are removed as subsequent requests are processed. Application diagnostics record service status and numerical usage, rather than question text or conversation contents.
Service providers
Our hosting and AI providers also process information needed to deliver, secure, and operate their services. Their handling of operational records and retention is governed by the applicable service terms. The app does not promise that information sent to an outside service is immediately deleted.
Anthropic processes API content under its applicable commercial arrangements. For its current information, see Anthropic’s privacy policy and its API and commercial data-retention guidance.
Your choices
- Use the Bible and study tools without signing in or enabling online answers.
- Keep guest studies locally, or choose account sync and which existing work to import.
- Export your work, review connected devices and approved browsers, sign out, or delete Eternal Word cloud data in the saving controls.
- Change your password or sign-in email address, or reset a forgotten password, in Saved → Account and sync.
- Stop using Sign in with Apple for this app at any time in your Apple ID settings; Eternal Word then ends the sign-ins that came from it.
- Turn online-answer permission off at any time in Settings.
- Clear an assistant conversation and remove individual saved items on your device.
- Choose what you share through the system share sheet or send to support.
For a privacy question or a request concerning information you submitted to our service, contact us below. Describe the request without sending unnecessary sensitive details. For an online-answer request, we may need its approximate time and nature because the answer service does not keep a readable conversation transcript. Cloud-account export and deletion are available directly in the saving controls; they do not require emailing support.
We may update this policy when the app or its services change. The effective date above identifies the current version.
Privacy contact
Eternal Word Study
luke.johnston1103@gmail.com