Privacy Policy

Effective: 2026-09-17

What this site is

Tarkman is a free tool that helps clergy and parish staff of the Armenian Church publish live services and explanations. This site is the admin backend. Visitors can follow a live service or read published explanations without signing in. ("We" refers to the project maintainer, Fr. Mesrop Ash — see Contact below.)

What we collect from visitors who are not signed in

Even without an account, the server records the following when you use the site:

  • Web request logs. Every page load writes a standard Rails request log line — the URL, the time, your IP address, and your browser's User-Agent string — to disk for debugging and abuse prevention. Retention is governed by our hosting provider's log policy; we do not share or use these logs for advertising.
  • Service views. When you follow a live service, the server creates a SessionView row recording the session ID, the current time, and your IP address. We use this to compute per-session analytics (such as approximate unique viewers) and to detect abuse. The row is not shared.
  • Explanation views. When you open an explanation while following a service, the server creates an ExplanationView row recording the explanation ID, the session ID, the viewing time, and how long the page was open. We use this to compute explanation analytics. The row is not shared.

We do not set tracking cookies, run analytics scripts, or load third-party advertising or retargeting pixels on this site.

What we collect when you create an account

Clergy and parish staff accounts store:

  • Email address (used for sign-in and password reset; stored in the database and indexed for lookups).
  • Password (stored as a one-way bcrypt hash; never in plain text).
  • Time-zone preference (so service times display correctly for you).
  • Sign-in timestamps and IP addresses (Devise :trackable), used to flag unfamiliar sign-ins during account-security review.
  • Profile fields you add on your profile page: first name and last name; church name; church mailing address (street, city, state, ZIP); and a profile avatar image. The church address is geocoded by our servers to derive latitude and longitude; those coordinates are used to place your church on the "Find a nearby church" list and are derived data, not directly entered.
  • Editorial content you author: services, explanations, ratings, and display links — stored under your account.

We do not collect payment information; Tarkman is free.

How we use error reports

The website sends crash reports to Sentry, a third-party error-monitoring service. Sentry events from this site are tagged:

  • For signed-in users, your internal user ID (an integer) and a coarse role tag (admin, editor, or user). Email, name, and IP address are not attached to events.
  • For anonymous visitors, no user identifier; the event is tagged authenticated: false.

We do not enable Sentry's default PII collection (SENTRY_SEND_DEFAULT_PII is false), so request headers and cookies are not attached either. Events do not include screenshots.

The iOS app also reports errors to Sentry under the same configuration; the iOS app does not enable screenshot capture.

Location and camera on the iOS app

The Tarkman iOS app uses your device location only if you tap the "Find a nearby church" feature. The lookup runs on the device against the church list we publish (which contains coordinates derived from each church's profile address); your location is never sent to our servers or stored anywhere.

The iOS app uses the camera only if you tap "Scan QR code" while following a service. The image is decoded on the device; no photos or video are uploaded.

No tracking, no advertising

We do not run ad networks, retargeting pixels, or third-party tracking on this site. We do not sell or share any data for advertising purposes, and we never have.

Account deletion

To delete your account and the associated sessions, explanations, ratings, display links, and profile data, email pastor@stjohnarmenianchurch.com. We will action the request.

Changes to this policy

If we change what we collect, we will update this page and bump the effective date above.

Contact

Privacy questions: pastor@stjohnarmenianchurch.com (Fr. Mesrop Ash, Tarkman maintainer).