Privacy Policy

• Email address and password (stored by our sign-in system; we never see your password in readable form).
• If you use Google or Apple: the basic details they share, such as your name and email, and that you signed in with them.
• Display name, username, bio, general location (only if you enter it), profile photo and cover photo.
• Why you joined, chosen during setup, your email verification status, your confirmation that you are 18 or older, and which versions of our Terms and Privacy Policy you agreed to.

You may choose experiences you are Going Through, have Been Through, or both. These can reveal sensitive subjects — such as illness, grief, recovery, faith, financial hardship or other life circumstances. Sharing them is always optional.

Each experience has a privacy setting:

• Public — may appear on your profile and in discovery, and may be shown to another member as the reason you were suggested.
• Belongward Only — used inside Belongward to personalise your feed and suggest people who understand, but not displayed as an experience on your profile.
• Private — stored as your own preference only; never displayed, never used for discovery or matching.

Posts, photos and their alt text, responses and replies, Prayer requests, Circle content, reactions, Circle memberships, follows, and reports you submit.

• Public — anyone may be able to read the post and its public conversation, including people who aren't signed in. Signed-out visitors can see reaction totals but not who reacted.
• Belongward — verified, signed-in members only.
• Circle Only — current members of that Circle only.
• Only Me — only you.

Please avoid posting anything you wouldn't want your chosen audience to see.

Content you deliberately post as Public can be read without signing in, shared through links, and seen outside Belongward. During our beta, individual Public posts are marked so search engines shouldn't index them, but we can't guarantee how other sites behave. Deleting a Public post removes it from Belongward, but can't remove copies or screenshots others may have made.

"Anonymous to Members" hides your identity from ordinary members in the request, its responses, supporter lists, and notifications. It is not anonymous to Belongward: we keep the link to your account for ownership, security, abuse prevention, reporting and moderation, and authorized team members can see it when needed for those purposes.

If you apply to be a Guide we collect your application answers, focus areas, any professional information you claim (such as licence type or number), uploaded verification documents, and review status and history. These records are kept in restricted storage visible only to you and the team members who review Guide applications. Documents are shown through short-lived private links, never public ones. Only your approved badge and public Guide details are shown to others.

We keep reports (including a snapshot of reported content as evidence), blocks, warnings, restrictions, suspensions and moderation history. This information is visible only to you where it's about your own account (for example, a warning you received) and to authorized moderation team members. We don't tell reported members who reported them, and other members can't see whether you have been restricted or suspended.

Supporter payments are processed by our payment provider. Belongward never receives or stores your full card number. We keep your membership status, plan, renewal and cancellation dates, and the provider's customer and subscription references, so we can show your status and let you manage your membership.

Like most online services, our hosting and sign-in providers record technical information such as IP address, browser type, and request times in server logs for security and troubleshooting. We store your sign-in session in your browser so you stay signed in. We don't currently use advertising cookies, advertising trackers or analytics pixels.

• To run Belongward: accounts, profiles, posts, Circles, Prayer, notifications and your feed.
• To suggest people who understand, using your Public and Belongward Only experiences — never Private ones.
• To keep members safe: blocking, reports, moderation and preventing abuse.
• To review Guide applications and process Supporter memberships.
• To send account emails, such as verification and password reset.

We don't sell your personal information. We share it only as needed with service providers that help run Belongward — cloud hosting, database and file storage, sign-in (including Google and Apple if you use them), email delivery, and payment processing — and when required by law or to protect someone's safety.

Belongward has no advertising today. We will not use your experiences, Prayer requests, Guide records or moderation information to target advertising.

Members may discuss cancer, serious illness, treatment and other health experiences. Belongward is a peer and community support platform. It is not a healthcare provider or medical records system and does not provide diagnosis or treatment. Please share health details only to the extent you're comfortable.

You can edit your profile and experiences and delete your own posts, responses and Prayer requests at any time. Deleted posts and responses are removed from view; we may keep limited records (for example, content preserved as evidence in a report) for safety, moderation, fraud prevention, accounting and legal reasons.

You can request account deletion in Settings → Account, or by emailing support@joinbelongward.com. Deletion is handled by our team and isn't immediate. There is no automatic data export yet: to request a copy of your information, a correction, or to ask any privacy question, email support@joinbelongward.com from the address on your account. When we delete an account we may keep limited information where needed for payments and accounting, fraud and security, moderation evidence, or legal obligations.

We use access controls so members only see what they're allowed to see, private storage for photos and documents, and restricted team access to sensitive records. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong, unique password.

We'll update the effective date and version above when this policy changes, and let you know about significant changes.

Privacy questions or requests? Please email us at support@joinbelongward.com. Belongward is operated by Belongward.