Oil for the LampSafeguarding and privacy
The rules that keep people safe, and exactly what the program stores.
If you need help now
If you are in danger or thinking of harming yourself, call your local emergency number now.
- United States: emergency 911
- United States: Suicide & Crisis Lifeline 988 call or text
- Haiti: police 114 to confirm
- Haiti: ambulance 116 to confirm
- Haiti: fire 115 to confirm
- Dominican Republic: emergency 911
- Anywhere else: your local emergency number.
Talk to a professional: a doctor, a counselor or your local health service. A mentor can help you find one, but a mentor is not a substitute.
Nobody watches the app around the clock. Messages and concerns are read during normal hours.
Numbers marked "to confirm" come from published lists but have not yet been checked with the services themselves. Emergency services in some places can be slow to respond.
Safeguarding rules
- Everyone is 18 or older. Minors cannot be mentees or mentors.
- Mentors pass five gates first: application, interview, background check, safeguarding training and signed rules.
- Women mentor women and men mentor men, or a married couple mentors together. Three mentees per mentor at most.
- Messages happen in one three-way thread: mentor, mentee and coordinator. No private photos. No money, gifts or promises.
- Messages sent outside 7 AM to 9 PM in the recipient's local time are flagged to the safeguarding lead.
- Every screen has an "I'm worried" button. It goes to the safeguarding lead, and you can send it without your name.
- The safeguarding lead aims to acknowledge every concern within 24 hours and can pause a match at once.
- Mentoring is non-professional. It complements and never replaces professional care.
Privacy notice
What we store
- A display name (a first name or initials), your email and a securely hashed password.
- Your language, time zone, quiet hours and an age band (such as 25 to 34).
- If you choose, a phone or WhatsApp number. Only your matched mentor and the coordinator can see it.
- Contact logs: the date, how (in person, phone, video, messages) and how many minutes.
- Tier I minutes for study, mentoring calls and reading.
- Goals and their next steps, learning links, and stage changes with the mentor's reason.
- Weekly reads of seven areas of daily life, and short notes (500 characters at most). You can read every note written about you.
- Messages in your three-way thread, and safeguarding concerns.
- A log of every time someone opens another person's record.
What we never store
- Your religion or church membership. There is no field for it anywhere.
- Your date of birth.
- Any rating or note about your spiritual practice. If you track it, it stays on your own device.
- What was said in a conversation.
- Location, contacts, photos, or device advertising identifiers.
Who can see what
- A mentee sees only their own record. A mentor sees only their own mentees. The coordinator sees their program. The safeguarding lead sees cases, and a match's messages only when that match is flagged.
- Leaders see totals, never names.
How long we keep it
- Messages: 90 days, then deleted.
- Everything else: while your account is open. When you delete your account, your records are deleted. Backups roll over on a short cycle; the exact period will be published before a pilot begins.
- Demo accounts: reset every night. Please don't type anything real into the demo.
Your choices
- Download everything the program holds about you from Settings, at any time.
- Delete your account from Settings. It takes effect straight away.
Security
- HTTPS everywhere. Passwords are hashed with Argon2id. Phone numbers and notes are encrypted at rest.
- No analytics, no advertising, no third-party scripts or fonts. The website sets no cookies.
- The phone and Windows apps use reminders scheduled on your own device. No push service receives your data.
Questions about privacy or safeguarding go to your program coordinator.