Privacy


Last updated: April 2021

Explanation of how and why ChurchAges.net protects your privacy:


The short version

We do NOT collect personal information! It's that simple.

The summary

Below are the summary points to emphasize that we do not collect your personal data.

We implement security at various levels, for example using TLS (secure encrypted communication when delivering content), and making all content databases read-only. The operating system runs the minimum software, and can only be accessed with security certificates.

The need for privacy from companies / commercial gain

Over the last years companies and people started using technology to gather as much personal information as possible for potential commercial gains. Many companies went completely overboard. Such abuses are now common in our daily news. The problems multiply when these companies then get hacked, give away our data, or lose it through pure negligence.

This has become such a problem that governments globally have created laws and regulations to stem and control the collection of personal information. A few examples are:

Most of these laws and regulations come with high fines for companies that do not abide by them.

If the collection of personal information was not a problem, then just ask yourself why governments had to create these laws and regulations to control such activities by companies? The commercial gains are obviously large enough that many companies still do this.

Our response: This site was created to help people in their spiritual lives. In Matthew 10:8, Jesus said, “... freely ye have received, freely give.” We also read how He drove out those who abused the common people for commercial gains in the temple of God.
We therefore take a strong stand against commercial activities on “Church” websites. You can read more about this on the About page.

The need for privacy from persecution

A famous Dutch Christian that was anonymous for most of his life was “Brother Andrew”. He is best known by the book “God’s Smuggler”. He “smuggled” Bibles behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. He later worked among the Muslims. Due to the nature of this work, he could not publish his real name. He later created the “Open Doors” organization that distributes Bibles across the world — mainly in countries that persecute Christians. Only recently, in his old age, do we find his real name on the Internet.

Gathering personal information can be dangerous for people in some circumstances. People might be in a situation where publishing, giving away, leaking, or losing their names and information could lead to their persecution, torture, and death. Their circumstances are most likely different from yours. There are many places across the world where Christianity is not welcome, and where Christians are brutally persecuted. It is wise not to gather any such personal information from the Internet.

Our response: On this site we try our best not to get any Christians into trouble.

This means going further than just delivering free and secure services to everyone, but gets more difficult by not using any third-party services that could possibly collect people's information.

For example, using common third-party services like Google Analytics or a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to speed up the site, allows Google or the CDN provider to collect users' personal information. The same happens when sites show social media buttons to allow you to easily share content with your friends. We would allow Facebook, Twitter, and similar sites to collect your personal information.

We therefore stay away from all third-party services. We do not even embed YouTube videos on the site.

Some questions

Why do you use TLS (https)?

The 's' in https indicates 'secure'. The old http communications to websites were not encrypted. This resulted in services providers knowing exactly where and what you browsed, and what data you sent (including passwords) and received. Intermediaries, like airport and hotel Wi-Fi hotspots could change the pages you receive by inserting advertising on these pages.
The new communications methods use TLS to encrypt all traffic to and from sites like ChurchAges.net. Service providers can at most see that you are visiting the site, but not what pages you view.

Why do you not use JavaScript?

There are numerous reasons. Many of these are because the majority of readers on this site use mobile phones.


“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” — 1 Corinthians 16:23