Privacy Policy

1. Introduction and scope

This Privacy Policy (the "Policy") describes how David Brown, doing business as Sermon Pipeline Media, a sole proprietorship located in San Diego County, California ("Sermon Pipeline Media," "we," "us" or "our"), collects, uses, discloses, retains and protects Personal Information in connection with (a) the website at sermonpipelinemedia.com (the "Website") and (b) the services we provide to churches and congregations (each, a "Client") to prepare their sermon recordings and publish them to the Client's own accounts, using our software, Sermon Pipeline (together, the "Services").

"Personal Information" means information that identifies, relates to or describes a particular individual, or that could reasonably be linked to one. This Policy forms part of our Terms of Service. By using the Website or the Services, you acknowledge the practices described in it.

2. Information we collect

2.1 Information collected when you visit the Website

The Website does not use cookies, analytics, tracking pixels or advertising technologies. Our website hosting provider receives the technical information that every website receives when it is visited, such as IP address, browser type and the pages requested, and may retain it in its server logs for a limited period. Where your device does not have the Website's typeface, your browser retrieves it from Google Fonts, and Google receives your IP address under the Google Privacy Policy.

When you arrive at the Website from one of our advertisements, the link you followed may carry a label naming that advertisement (for example, "utm_campaign"). The Website passes the label on to its links for creating an account and for booking a call, so that we can tell which advertisement led to a new account or a booking; when you create an account, the label is kept with it. The label names the advertisement, not you, and nothing is stored on your device.

The members area of the Website, which a church's representatives use once they have created an account or been invited, stores a sign-in token in your browser's local storage so that you remain signed in between visits. It is used for no other purpose, is sent nowhere but the Website, and is removed when you choose Sign out.

2.2 Information you provide to us

• Booking a call. Calls are booked through Calendly, which collects your name, email address and answers to its booking questions under its own privacy policy and provides them to us. Those questions concern you and your church: your role, your telephone number, the church's name, email address and website, who usually teaches, how the church describes itself, where people find its sermons today, how you heard about us, the services you are interested in, the accounts the church already has, and anything else you choose to tell us. Calls take place on Google Meet, or by telephone at the number you give us.
• Before-the-call form. After booking, we ask you to complete a short form on the Website about your church: its street address, how it describes itself, the terms it uses, any names or words it would like spelled in a particular way and, if you choose to tell us, how you heard about us.
• Contact form. If you write to us through the Website, we collect your name, email address and message and, if you provide them, your telephone number and your church's name.
• Creating an account. When you create an account in the members area, we collect your name, your church's name, your email address and a password, which our website hosting provider stores in a form we cannot read. We send a link to your email address to confirm it.
• Questions about your church. In the members area we ask about your church so that we can prepare its agreement and its Services: for example its name, city and street address, its contact email and website, who usually teaches, its service day and time, how it describes itself and the terms it uses, the plan it chooses, and the accounts it already has. We also keep the time zone your browser reports, so that we write to you at reasonable hours.
• Asking us to call you. If you ask us to call you, we collect your name, your church's name, your telephone number, a good time to call and anything else you choose to tell us.
• Forms in our advertisements. If you send us your details through a form in one of our advertisements on Facebook or Instagram, Meta collects them under its own privacy policy and provides them to us: your name, your email address and any answers you give to the form's questions.

Information submitted through forms on the Website is received first by our website hosting provider, which screens it for spam and forwards it to us by email.

2.3 Information about Clients

When a church becomes a Client, we collect and maintain the information needed to provide the Services, including:

• the names, roles, email addresses and telephone numbers of the Client's representatives;
• the Client's name, location, service days and times, publishing schedule, and the terms it uses for its gatherings, its teaching and its leaders;
• the accounts the Client maintains and the access it has authorized;
• members area logins: the name and email address of each representative who creates an account or whom we invite, and a password that our website hosting provider stores in a form we cannot read;
• the executed services agreement, including the name and role of the person who signed it and, where it is signed in the members area, the date and time, the login used, and the IP address and browser type from which it was signed; and
• invoices and payment records. Payments are processed by Stripe, and we do not receive full payment card or bank account numbers.

2.4 Recordings and Derived Materials

Each week we obtain the recording of the Client's service ("Recording") in one of three ways: by downloading it from the Client's Facebook Page with the Client's authorization; from a folder the Client shares with us; or from a phone recording the Client makes under a setup we provide. From each Recording we produce edited video and audio, transcripts and captions, titles, show notes, chapter markers, artwork and short clips (together, "Derived Materials").

A Recording may include the voices and images of individuals attending the service. The Client determines what is recorded and published, and is responsible for giving any notice to, and obtaining any consent from, those individuals that applicable law requires. We publish only the Recordings the Client provides, only to the Client's own accounts, and only on the schedule the Client chooses.

2.5 Religious affiliation

Because our Clients are churches and congregations, the information we hold may indicate that an individual is associated with a particular church. We use that information only to provide the Services, and we do not use it to infer characteristics about any individual.

3. How we use information

We use Personal Information only to:

• provide, operate and support the Services, including preparing and publishing Recordings and Derived Materials;
• prepare for and conduct calls, respond to your requests and messages, and help you finish setting up your church (including an email if you stop partway, or about questions you left unanswered);
• administer our agreements, invoices and payments;
• keep the Website, the Services and the Client accounts we can access secure; and
• comply with legal obligations and enforce our agreements.

We do not sell Personal Information, use it for targeted advertising, or use it to make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about any individual.

Two artificial-intelligence services assist with the Services: Groq transcribes the audio of each Recording, and Anthropic's Claude drafts titles, show notes, chapter markers and clip selections from that transcript. We do not use Recordings, transcripts or Derived Materials to train artificial-intelligence models, and we do not sell them.

4. Access to Client platform accounts

We do not request, receive or store any Client account password. A Client grants access to an account by approving it on that platform's own authorization page, or by adding our account to its team on that platform. Approval issues an access credential, which is stored only on the computer we use for publishing and never on the Website. We use each credential solely to provide the Services to that Client, and solely for the following purposes:

• YouTube. Sermon Pipeline uses YouTube API Services. With the Client's authorization, it uploads the Client's sermons and clips to the Client's channel; sets their titles, descriptions, thumbnails and publishing times; and maintains the Client's playlists. For those purposes it reads the Client's own videos and playlists. It does not access the channel's analytics, subscribers or viewers.
• Facebook. With access to the Client's Page, it locates the livestream of the service and downloads the Recording.
• Instagram. It reads the account's name and identifier and publishes Reels to the account. Instagram retrieves each video from a temporary web address, and we delete that copy once the Reel is published.
• TikTok. It reads the account's name and profile picture and publishes clips to the account.
• Spotify. The Client adds our Spotify account to its show's team, through which we upload episodes and clips.
• The Client's website. Where the Client has our sermon library on its website, a credential from its website provider allows us to add a page for each new sermon.
• Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio and Amazon Music. We assist the Client in listing its podcast feed with each service once. Thereafter each service retrieves new episodes from the feed, and we have no access to the Client's accounts with them.

We do not collect information about the people who watch or listen to a Client's content. The platforms collect that information under their own privacy policies.

YouTube is a Google service, and the Google Privacy Policy applies to it. Sermon Pipeline Media's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

5. How we disclose information

We do not sell or share Personal Information, as those terms are defined under California law. We disclose it only to the following categories of service providers, and only to the extent each needs it to perform services for us:

• Google, for email, video calls, file storage and YouTube;
• Apple, whose iCloud Drive stores each Client's folder of records;
• Calendly, for scheduling calls;
• Stripe, for payment processing;
• Groq and Anthropic, for transcription and first drafts;
• ntfy, a notification service that sends brief progress messages about each week's work to our own phone;
• our website hosting provider; and
• the platforms to which each Client directs us to publish.

We may also disclose Personal Information (a) where required by law, subpoena or other legal process; (b) where necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of any person; or (c) in connection with a sale, merger or reorganization of our business, in which case it will remain subject to the commitments in this Policy. We do not disclose Personal Information to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes.

6. Data retention

• Clients. For the duration of the services agreement we retain Recordings and Derived Materials so that we can correct or republish them as needed. When the services agreement ends, we remove our access to the Client's accounts, close its members area logins, return any of the Client's materials we hold, and delete our copies within sixty (60) days. Content already published remains on the Client's own accounts, which belong to the Client. We retain the services agreement and billing records for as long as tax and accounting law requires.
• Prospective Clients. If you create an account, book a call, ask us to call you or write to us, and your church does not become a Client, we retain your account and your answers about your church, your booking details and correspondence, and any unsigned agreement, for up to one (1) year.

In each case we delete the information sooner if you ask us to, unless the law requires us to keep it.

7. Data security

We maintain reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards appropriate to the nature of the information we hold. Client files and access credentials are kept on computers and accounts we control, protected by passwords and accessible only to the people performing the Services. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a security incident affects a Client's information or accounts, we will notify the Client promptly, describe the steps we are taking, and give any further notice that applicable law requires.

8. Your privacy rights and choices

8.1 Rights available to everyone

Wherever you live, you may ask us to:

• tell you what Personal Information we hold about you, how we obtained it, and the purposes for which we use and disclose it, and give you a copy of it in a commonly used format;
• correct Personal Information about you that is inaccurate;
• delete Personal Information about you, subject to the exceptions described in Section 9; and
• stop sending you emails other than those needed to provide Services you have requested.

We will not treat you differently, or provide a different level of service, because you exercise any of these rights.

8.2 California residents

California law, including the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (the "CCPA"), gives California residents rights over Personal Information held by businesses to which it applies: the right to know what Personal Information is collected, used and disclosed; the right to delete it; the right to correct it; the right to opt out of its sale or sharing; the right to limit the use of sensitive Personal Information; and the right not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights. Whether or not the CCPA applies to us, we honor these rights for every individual as described in this Section 8.

In the preceding twelve (12) months, we have collected the following categories of Personal Information described in the CCPA, from the sources and for the purposes described in Sections 2 and 3: identifiers (such as names, email addresses, telephone numbers and IP addresses); customer records (such as addresses, signatures on services agreements and billing records); commercial information (the services a Client has purchased); audio and visual information (Recordings); and professional information (a representative's role at a church). We disclose these categories only as described in Section 5.

We do not sell or share Personal Information, and we do not use or disclose sensitive Personal Information for any purpose that would give rise to a right to limit it. We do not knowingly sell or share the Personal Information of anyone under sixteen (16) years of age.

Under California's Online Privacy Protection Act: the Website does not respond differently to "Do Not Track" browser signals, because it does not track visitors; and we do not allow third parties to collect Personal Information about your online activities over time and across different websites through the Website. Under California Civil Code section 1798.83, we do not disclose Personal Information to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes.

8.3 How to make a request

Email hello@sermonpipelinemedia.com and describe your request. To protect your information, we will verify your identity by matching the information you provide with the information we hold, and we may ask for more information if needed to do so. You may make a request through an authorized agent, who must provide your written permission; we may still ask you to verify your identity directly. We will respond within thirty (30) days. If we cannot fulfill a request in whole or in part, we will explain why, and you may ask us to reconsider by replying to our response.

9. Deletion requests and revoking access

To request deletion of information we hold about you or your church, email hello@sermonpipelinemedia.com from the address we have on file and identify the information you would like deleted. We will complete the deletion within thirty (30) days and confirm it by email. Where the law requires us to retain certain information, such as an invoice, we will tell you what we are retaining and why.

A Client may also revoke our access to any of its accounts directly, at any time and without notice to us:

• Google and YouTube: visit https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions, select Sermon Pipeline Media, and remove its access.
• Facebook: in Facebook's settings, open Business integrations and remove Sermon Pipeline.
• Instagram: in Instagram's settings, open Apps and websites and remove Sermon Pipeline, which may appear as Sermon Pipeline-IG.
• TikTok: in TikTok's settings, under Security and permissions, remove Sermon Pipeline from the apps with access.
• Spotify: remove our account from the show's team in the Spotify for Creators settings.

Revoking access stops any part of the Services that depends on it.

10. Children's privacy

The Website and the Services are intended for churches and the adults who act for them. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information online from children under thirteen (13) years of age. If you believe a child has provided us with Personal Information, contact us and we will delete it.

11. Where information is processed

We are located in the United States, and we process Personal Information in the United States. Our service providers and the publishing platforms may process it in other countries under their own privacy policies.

12. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. We will post the updated Policy on this page with a new "Last updated" date. If a change materially affects Clients, we will notify them by email before it takes effect.

13. Contact us

Questions about this Policy, and requests under it, may be sent to:

Sermon Pipeline Media
Attn: Privacy
hello@sermonpipelinemedia.com
San Diego County, California