Privacy

KKKT Mbezi Luis Lutheran Church, a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, Eastern and Coastal Diocese, Western District. The parish is at Mbezi Luis, Ubungo, Dar es Salaam, beside Magufuli Bus Terminal.

This notice covers the church website, the Mbezi Luis mobile app, and the church's WhatsApp number. It applies to all three together, because they share one register.

When you register as a member: your name, telephone number, and the details asked on the registration form — date of birth, marital status, household, sub-parish and the groups you belong to. This is the parish register. It exists so the church knows who its members are and can care for them.

When you give: the amount, the fund, the date, and the method. This is kept against your name so the church can account for what it receives and so you can see your own giving history.

When you use the assistant, on the website, in the app or on WhatsApp: the messages you send and the answers you receive. These are kept so the parish office can see what people are asking and follow up where the assistant could not help.

When you ask to speak to a person: the name, telephone number and note you choose to give, together with the conversation that led to it, so whoever calls you back already knows why.

Visits to the website are counted in aggregate — how many people came, which pages they read. No individual is identified in those counts.

Only church staff with an account, and only the parts their role allows. The system divides staff into roles: some may see the register but not giving; some may send messages but see neither. Giving is visible only to those responsible for it.

Your own record and your own giving history are visible to you when you sign in.

Members' names appear on the public group and choir pages — names only. No telephone number, membership number or address is ever shown publicly.

We do not sell this information, and we do not share it for advertising.

The website and app run on Vercel, and the register is stored in a Neon database. Both are hosting providers; neither uses the church's information for its own purposes.

Messages on WhatsApp pass through Meta's WhatsApp Business service and are subject to Meta's own terms.

The assistant's replies are generated by Anthropic's Claude. The message you send is passed to it so it can answer; it is not used to train any model.

SMS, where used, is sent through a Tanzanian gateway.

The parish register and giving records are kept for as long as you are a member, and afterwards as part of the church's historical record — the same way a parish has always kept its books.

Conversations with the assistant are kept so the office can follow up. Ask us and they will be deleted.

You may ask to see what the church holds about you, to have a mistake corrected, or to have your conversations with the assistant deleted.

Members cannot edit their own register entry once it is submitted — only the parish office can, so that one person's record cannot be changed by someone else. Tell the office what is wrong and they will correct it.

To ask for any of this, contact the parish office using the details below.

Children appear in the register as dependants of a household, entered by a parent or guardian. The app and website are not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect information directly from a child.