Your account

An account is made with your name, your email address, and a password. The email address is how you sign in. Your password is never stored as you typed it: it is scrambled with a salted one-way hash (scrypt), so nobody — not even the Chancellor’s office — can read it. If you forget your password, the sign-in page will email you a link to set a new one yourself — no one at the office needs to be involved; the link works for one hour, and setting the new password signs every other device out. An administrator can also set a new password for you if you are locked out, but can never see the old one. The Chancellor’s office can see your name, your email address, and your study record — that is how a school keeps its rolls.

Your study record

As you study, the university keeps the record a school keeps: the chapters you have read (the site detects a genuine through-reading, including how much of the chapter was seen and the reading time), your quiz and exam attempts with your answers and scores, your grade standing, and the certificates you have earned. The Biblical Exercises likewise record your completions and, where an exercise keeps score, your score.

Bible Reading Accountability

If you take part in Bible Reading Accountability, the site also keeps your reading plan, the chapters you have read, your check-ins and reading streaks, your answers to the reading check questions, and the accountability features around them — reading partners, encouragements you send and receive, and the reading circles you belong to or started.

The Grace Team Network

Every student is listed in the Grace Team Network directory by name. Beyond your name, your profile shows only what you choose to add: a testimony, your city or region, and your home church or ministry. Your picture is your initials unless you upload one of your own; an uploaded picture is stored as a picture file on our server, beside the database. Wall posts are marked by you, post by post, Public or Private — a private post can be read only by you, the member whose wall it stands on, and the Chancellor’s safety desk. Direct messages travel between you and the member you write to; they are stored on our server and are not encrypted end-to-end, and the Chancellor’s safety desk can review recent messages and wall posts, and the reports members file, to keep the peace — that oversight is part of how the Network is guarded. Blocks and reports are stored so those safety features work. If you set your Network profile to Private, you leave the directory and your profile closes to other members — and your own sending and posting close with it — until you go Public again.

The public ledgers

The university keeps three public ledgers — the Progress Ledger, the Exercises Ledger, and the Reading Ledger. They show students’ display names with their study standing: courses finished, exercises completed, chapters read. Names and study standing only — never email addresses or anything private. The ledgers are the school’s open record; your name stands in them while your account stands, and deleting your account removes your name from them.

Cookies and your own device

The site sets exactly one cookie of its own: a sign-in cookie (named gtu_session) that keeps you signed in. If you leave “Remember this device” ticked when you sign in — it is ticked by default — the cookie keeps you signed in for up to ninety days at a time, renewed as you study; unticked, it lasts up to fourteen days. Signing out ends it at once. It is httpOnly — the page’s scripts cannot read it — and it carries no advertising or tracking of any kind. A few features keep their settings in your own browser’s local storage, on your device only: your Bible reader preferences, the morning worship alarm, and some game progress. If you install the site as an app, your browser also stores the site’s own files on your device, so pages open quickly and some things work offline. None of this follows you around the web.

The services that help run the site

Hosting. The site runs on a rented server (Render). Like every web host, it keeps standard technical logs — the pages requested, internet addresses, and errors — to run and protect the service.

Fonts. The site’s lettering is loaded from Google Fonts, so your browser asks Google for the font files when a page opens.

Videos. Teachings and sermons are embedded from YouTube in its privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie). When you play a video, that playback is handled by YouTube under Google’s own privacy policy.

The contact form. Messages sent from the Contact page are delivered to the school office through FormSubmit, a form-delivery service. What you write there — your name, email, and message — passes through that service to reach us, and your email is used to reply to you.

Donations. The Donation page links out to Cash App. Any gift is made on Cash App, under Cash App’s own policy; this site never sees, receives, or stores your card or bank details.

Email. If you ask for a password-reset link at the sign-in page, it is emailed to your own address from the university’s mailbox through Google (Gmail). That reset email is the only email the site itself sends.

What we never do

We never sell or rent your information. There is no advertising on this site and no advertiser tracking. We use no analytics service to watch how you move through the site. We send no marketing email — the only email the site itself ever sends is the password-reset link you ask for at the sign-in page, and it goes only to your own address. Your address is your sign-in and, if you write to us, the way we write back. We do not share your information with anyone beyond the working services named above, except if the law ever required it.

How long it is kept — and deleting it

Your record is kept while your account stands. You may delete your account at any time, yourself, in Account Settings — “Delete my account”. Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone: it removes your account and sign-in, your whole study record and certificates, your name from the public ledgers, your Network profile, picture, and wall, and the messages you sent or received (from both sides of the conversation). Safety reports you filed are kept on file for the protection of other students, with your name removed from them. What deletion does is spelled out again on the delete page itself, before you confirm.

Security

Passwords are hashed as described above; repeated failed sign-ins are throttled and locked for a time; and every connection to the site is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). No honest site can promise perfection, but the careful things are done.

Students and children

The children’s lessons are study material on this same site, and a child’s account holds the same kinds of information described on this page — nothing more is collected for them. A parent or guardian with any question about a child’s account, including deleting it, may write to the school office through the Contact page.

Changes and questions

If the way this site handles information ever changes, this page will be changed to say so, plainly. Questions about this policy or about your own information: write to the school office through the Contact page — every message is read.