1. Who we are
3 CORDS ("we", "us") is operated by Jonathan Frank Gray trading as 3 CORDS CHRISTIAN NETWORK, ABN 31 422 651 754, Western Australia. We run the website www.3cords.com.au and the 3 CORDS apps for iOS and Android (together, "3 CORDS"). Contact for privacy questions: privacy@3cords.com.au.
We take your privacy seriously, especially because information about your faith and your church is sensitive information under Australian privacy law. We comply with the Australian Privacy Principles even where the law may not strictly require a business of our size to do so.
2. What information we collect
| When | Information |
|---|---|
| Joining the waitlist | First name, email, your confirmation that you are 18 or older, postcode (or country), church name (optional), interests, whether you'd like to help, how you found us (source tag), your consent and when you gave it. |
| Creating an account | Name, email, password (stored only as a secure hash), birth month and year, gender, how long you've followed Jesus (in bands), postcode and suburb, your church choice (or that your church isn't listed, or that you don't have one), consents. |
| If your church isn't listed | Details you give about the church (name, location, postcode, lead pastor or elder, contact person, phone, email). |
| Using 3 CORDS | Optional profile details (interests, spiritual gifts, missions, short bio), groups you join or run, posts, comments, messages, message requests, reports, blocks, notification settings. Group owners may upload a group cover image and logo. |
| Champions and admins | Records of approvals and other actions you take. |
| Automatically | Device and log information (such as browser type, app version, pages requested, error reports), a hashed version of your IP address for security and rate-limiting, and (in the apps) a push-notification token if you allow notifications. |
We do not collect your street address, photo, phone number (unless you put it in a church form), precise location, or payment details. We do not use advertising trackers or third-party analytics.
Sensitive information: your church affiliation and Christian background are "religious beliefs or affiliations". We collect them only with your express consent, given when you sign up, and only because 3 CORDS cannot connect you with churches and other believers without them.
3. How we collect it
Directly from you (forms, the app), from a church champion who includes your email on a pre-approval list for their church (we use that only to approve you automatically if you later sign up with that email and choose that church; we never email people on these lists), and automatically when you use 3 CORDS.
4. Why we use it
- To run 3 CORDS: create and secure your account, route your application to the right church champion or our team, show your profile to other members as described below, run groups and messaging, and send you service emails and notifications.
- To keep people safe: check that members are 18 or older, review reports (including child-safety reports), moderate content, prevent spam and abuse, investigate misuse, and preserve and report evidence of illegal material to the authorities where the law requires or allows.
- To follow up church connections you ask for (for example "please have this church contact me").
- To send waitlist and launch updates if you consented (you can unsubscribe at any time).
- To improve 3 CORDS using aggregated statistics from our own database (no third-party analytics).
- To comply with the law.
We don't sell your information, and we don't use it for targeted advertising.
5. Who can see your information
- Other approved members see your first name and last initial, suburb, age range, church, Christian background band, gender (you can hide it), interests/gifts/missions you choose to share and your bio. They never see your email, phone, birth date or postcode. You can turn off "Let members find me in search".
- Church champions for the church you choose see your application details (name, suburb, age range, Christian background band, church) to decide on it. If you ask a church to follow you up, that church's champion (or our team) receives your first name, email and suburb.
- Group members see your posts and comments in that group; conversation participants see your messages.
- The 3 CORDS admin team can access information needed to run and protect the service. Admin access is protected by two-factor authentication and logged.
6. Service providers and overseas disclosure
We use trusted providers to run 3 CORDS:
- Google Cloud (hosting, database, file storage) — our database and files are stored in Sydney, Australia.
- Resend (sending email) — emails are sent through Resend's Tokyo region and Resend stores email records in the United States.
- Google Maps Platform (maps and address look-up), Firebase Cloud Messaging (app notifications) and the Google Drive API (only if a champion chooses to import a Google Sheet) — these Google services may process data outside Australia, including in the United States.
- Apple and Google (app stores and device notifications) under their own privacy policies.
- Our business email provider for our mailboxes (hello@, admin@, privacy@) — correspondence with you may be stored outside Australia.
We take reasonable steps to make sure these providers protect your information consistently with the APPs.
7. How we protect and keep your information
Encryption in transit (HTTPS) and at rest, two-factor authentication for administrators and champions, least-privilege access, audit logs, regular backups (kept for up to 30 days) and security testing. No system is perfectly secure; if a data breach is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) as the law requires.
How long we keep it:
| Information | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Unconfirmed waitlist sign-ups | 14 days |
| Confirmed waitlist entries (if you don't create an account) | Until 12 months after 3 CORDS opens to members, then deleted |
| Rejected applications | 90 days |
| Your account | Until you delete it; after deletion we remove your data within 30 days (usually 7); backup copies are deleted within a further 30 days |
| Reports and moderation records | 2 years (to keep the community safe) |
| Security and audit logs | Up to 2 years (application logs about 30 days) |
8. Age
3 CORDS is for adults. In this phase you must be 18 or older to join the waitlist or hold an account, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that an account or waitlist entry belongs to someone under 18, we will delete it and tell the person (and, where appropriate, a parent or guardian) that we have done so. We are designing a separate, safer way for 13–17-year-olds to take part in a later phase, with parent or guardian consent; it will only launch after we have reviewed it against the Children's Online Privacy Code (to be registered by 10 December 2026) and taken legal advice, and this policy will be updated first.
9. Your choices and rights
- Access and correction: update most details in your profile; ask us for anything else at privacy@3cords.com.au.
- Download your data: Settings → Your data.
- Delete your account: Settings → Delete account (in the website or the app), or see www.3cords.com.au/delete-account.
- Marketing: unsubscribe using the link in any update email.
- Notifications: choose which emails and app notifications you receive.
- Withdraw consent for sensitive information: this means closing your account, because 3 CORDS can't work without your church information.
We respond to requests within 30 days.
10. Cookies
We use only essential cookies (to keep you signed in securely and protect forms). We don't use advertising or analytics cookies. Embedded videos use YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode or Vimeo, which may set their own cookies when you play a video.
11. Complaints
Contact privacy@3cords.com.au. We'll acknowledge your complaint within 7 days and aim to resolve it within 30 days. If you're not satisfied, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au.
12. Changes
We'll post any changes here with a new effective date and, for significant changes, tell members by email or in the app.