Privacy policy

Who is responsible

The controller is Levi Grossenbacher, Bannäckerstrasse 7, 8582 Dozwil, Switzerland. I run Yachad as a private individual.

For any privacy question, reach me at levi@grossenbacher.net.

Information about your faith

Much of what you enter in Yachad allows conclusions about your religious views. The law treats this as sensitive personal data. It includes:

• which churches you list as “my church” and which ministries you follow
• your RSVPs to services, events and plans
• your interests for matching churches (e.g. denomination, music style) and the setting “I’m looking for a church”
• what you write or show yourself in plans, comments and photos

You provide this information voluntarily. I only process it so the app works: so you can find churches, make plans with friends and others can see what you want to show them. You decide who sees what, in the settings and with every RSVP. The defaults are cautious: by default, only your friends see your RSVPs.

I do not analyse this information for advertising, build no profiles for third parties and pass it on only to the service providers listed below, who process it solely on my behalf.

Account and sign-in

For an account I need your name, your email address, a password and your date of birth. I only store the password as a secure hash (argon2id), never in plain text.

After you register, I send you a confirmation link. Only the link creates the account. I delete unconfirmed registrations as soon as the link expires after 48 hours.

If you use Sign in with Apple, Apple gives me a fixed identifier, your email address (an anonymous relay address from Apple if you choose) and your name. So that I can revoke the connection to Apple when you delete your account, I also store a token from Apple, encrypted.

For every sign-in on a device I store a sign-in token (only as a hash) with a device name. I delete expired tokens after 7 days.

Date of birth and protection of minors

Yachad is for people aged 16 and over. I only ask for your date of birth to check the minimum age and to apply the stricter rules for teenagers until your 18th birthday. Other people never see it.

For churches and ministries that approve members, the church team sees your age in years, never the date (see Churches and dates).

If you are under 16, you cannot register. After a rejection, the app or browser remembers this on your device for 24 hours. If an account is reported as “under 16” and this is confirmed, I suspend it immediately and delete it after 30 days.

Profile and settings

Your profile consists of your name, username and, if you like, a short text, a profile picture and a cover image. Signed-in people can see your profile as far as minor protection and blocking allow. Your main church appears on your profile, other churches do not.

Dates on your profile, your friends list and past shared dates are only visible to your friends. Whether your friends see where you will be in the next few days is set under “My RSVPs on my profile”.

Who can find you through people search and who may send you friend requests depends on your settings and on minor protection.

Stored only for you are your interests for matching churches, the setting “I’m looking for a church” and “My places” (up to 10 saved places for new plans, only what you enter yourself).

Friends, groups and plans

So you can make plans with others, I store your friendships and requests, your groups (name, description, picture, members, optionally a link to the WhatsApp group), invitations and invite links, and your plans with time, place, participants, comments, reactions and photos.

The person who creates a plan decides who sees it: only the group or invited people, friends, certain churches or everyone. Only members and confirmed participants see the exact address; everyone else only sees the neighbourhood. Only participants see the comments and photos of a date. Anyone who may only view an opened plan sees the number of RSVPs, not the names.

If you block someone, they no longer see your profile content, RSVPs and plans, and your friendship ends.

Churches and dates

You can list churches as “my church”, follow ministries and RSVP to services and events or mark yourself as “interested”. With every RSVP you choose whether your friends see it or only you.

Churches generally only see numbers: how many people list them as their church, how many follow a ministry and how many are coming to a date. A church never finds out who is coming.

Exception: some churches and ministries only admit members on request, such as a house group or a leadership team. If you request access or are a member there, the responsible team sees your name, username, profile picture, whether the church is your main church, and your age in years. Who requested and who approved is recorded. I delete settled requests 30 days after the decision.

If a date has limited places, others see the total number of RSVPs, never names.

Location and maps

For “near you”, the app asks for your location, on the web your browser does. It is rounded to about one kilometre, sent to the server only for that search and not stored. You can also use Yachad without your location.

I only store exact places for churches and church dates, for plans where you enter a place yourself, and for your “My places”.

Maps and place search:

• On iPhone the app shows maps from Apple. The map sections and what you type into the place search go directly to Apple.
• In the web app, my server loads the maps from OpenFreeMap and searches places with swisstopo, the Swiss Federal Office of Topography. Neither receives your IP address or your account; swisstopo only receives the search term.

Photos

I re-save profile pictures, cover images, group pictures and photos in plans. In doing so I remove metadata such as where the photo was taken and only keep scaled-down versions.

Images are stored under a random address that cannot be guessed. Anyone who knows this address can open the image without signing in. So don’t upload anything that only very few people may see.

The app only uses the camera and photo library when you take or choose a picture yourself.

Notifications, emails and calendar

If you allow notifications, I store Apple’s device token and the app version. Push notifications go through Apple. They contain names and titles, such as the name of a group, plan or church, but never the text of comments. I delete notifications in the app after 90 days.

I only send emails when they are needed: confirming your account, resetting your password, moderation decisions and messages about the admin portal. There is no newsletter.

You can add dates to your calendar. On iPhone, the app only needs permission to add events; it does not read your calendar. On the web you download a calendar file.

Reporting and moderation

If you report content or a person, I store the report with its category, any details you add and a copy of the reported content at the time of the report. The Yachad platform team reviews reports. The reported person does not find out who reported them.

When the platform team makes a decision, the person affected receives it with a statement of reasons by email, notification and a notice in the app. The person who reported only learns the outcome.

I delete reports and decisions 2 years after the decision. If a suspension is still in force, its decision is kept as long as the suspension lasts. For a permanent suspension I store a hash of the email address or Apple identifier so the person cannot register again while the suspension applies. A hash does not reveal the address.

Admin portal for churches

Churches manage their profile with portal logins that are separate from app accounts. For a portal login I store name, email address, password hash, two-factor key (encrypted), recovery codes (as hashes), the role in the church and optionally a phone number for the platform team. For every sign-in I store a device name and browser identifier so you can see your sessions. If a login signs in from a new device, the portal recognises this by a cookie and sends an information email.

For an application for a church login I store the details of the church, the name and role of the applicant, the official email address of the church, and optionally a phone number and a message. I delete unconfirmed applications after 7 days.

The portal log records who in the team changed what, with the name at the time of the change. It is visible to the church’s admins and to the leaders of the ministry concerned. I delete entries after 12 months. I delete expired team invitations 30 days after they expire.

Whatever a church publishes on its profile is public. What churches are responsible for is set out in the terms for churches.

This website

yachad.social sets no cookies, uses no analytics tools and loads nothing from third-party servers; fonts and images come from its own server.

If you choose the light or dark theme, only your browser remembers it (local storage). Whether the intro animation has already played is remembered by the browser until you close the tab.

Cookies in the web app

The web app at app.yachad.social only uses cookies it needs to work. There are no cookies for advertising or statistics.

• Signing in to the app: two cookies that keep you signed in (until you sign out or the sign-in expires)
• Registration: a cookie for where to continue after confirmation (short-lived), and after a rejection because of age, a 24-hour block
• Admin portal: sign-in cookies, a cookie for the intermediate step of two-factor sign-in (5 minutes) and a random device cookie by which the portal recognises known devices (400 days)

The browser stores the chosen theme and the navigation history within the app locally. If you block cookies, signing in does not work.

Servers and logs

My server logs requests without IP addresses and without content, only the kind of request, the result and the duration. To prevent abuse it counts sign-in attempts per IP address; this count is only kept in memory and expires after one minute.

Technical error logs of the web server may contain IP addresses. I delete them after 14 days at most.

Service providers and recipients

I do not sell data and do not pass it on for advertising. Personal data is only received by:

• Infomaniak Network SA, Geneva, Switzerland: servers, database, images, backups and sending emails. All data is stored in data centres in Switzerland. Infomaniak processes it solely on my behalf.
• Apple (Apple Inc., USA, or Apple Distribution International Ltd., Ireland), only for the iPhone app: push notifications, Sign in with Apple and maps. Apple may also process this data in the USA. How Apple handles it is described in Apple’s privacy policy. Apple handles downloading the app through the App Store under its own responsibility.
• swisstopo (Swiss Federal Office of Topography, Wabern): the search term of the place search in the web app, without IP address or account.

Other people in Yachad see your information as described in this policy and in your settings. I only disclose data to authorities if I am legally obliged to.

How long I keep data

In principle I keep your data as long as you have your account. Shorter periods:

• unconfirmed registrations: until the link expires after 48 hours
• expired sign-in tokens: 7 days after expiry
• notifications in the app: 90 days
• settled requests to churches and ministries: 30 days after the decision
• moderation reports and decisions: 2 years after the decision
• admin portal log: 12 months
• unconfirmed applications for a church login: 7 days
• web server error logs: 14 days at most
• backups: 30 days at most

Deleting your account and exporting your data

You delete your account in the app under Settings. After 30 days it is permanently deleted, with profile, pictures, photos, comments, RSVPs, friendships and settings. If you sign in again before then, the deletion is cancelled. If you signed in with Apple, I also revoke the connection to Apple.

Plans you created for others remain for them, but without your name. Copies of your content in reports remain until the retention period for reports ends. Deleted data remains in backups for up to 30 days.

Under Settings you can export all data of your account as a file (JSON) at any time.

Your rights

You can request access to your data, have incorrect data corrected and have data deleted. You can ask me to hand over your data in a common format, and object to processing. Much of this can be done directly in the app. For everything else, write to levi@grossenbacher.net.

So that nobody receives someone else’s data, I check that the request comes from you, usually via the email address of your account. I reply within 30 days.

If you disagree with my answer, you can contact the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (edoeb.admin.ch).

Security

All connections are encrypted (HTTPS). I only store passwords, sign-in tokens and invite links as hashes, and two-factor keys and the Apple token encrypted. Two-factor sign-in is mandatory for church admins and leaders and for the platform team. Who may see what is decided in a single, tested place on the server. Backups are encrypted.

Should a data breach with high risk nevertheless occur, I will report it to the FDPIC and inform those affected, as the law requires.

Changes

If the way Yachad processes data changes, I will update this policy. I will announce significant changes in the app. The current version on this page applies.