Privacy Policy

Who we are

pastorbm.com is run by Ben Michael Ministries, the ministry of Pastor Ben Michael (“Pastor BM”), based in Agbor, Delta State, Nigeria. In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Ben Michael Ministries. We decide how your personal information is used, and we follow the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023.

Questions or requests about your information: [email protected].

What we collect

We only collect what we need to run the site and its programmes.

• Your account: your name, email address and date of birth, and the date you were last active. If you are 13 to 17, we also record that your parent or guardian agreed, and their email if you give it. You sign in with a code we email you; codes expire after a few minutes.
• Challenges, such as the 40 Days Transformational Challenge: that you joined, and for each day you report, whether you read 5 Bible chapters and prayed for at least an hour, the lessons you learnt and, from age 18, your phone number (WhatsApp preferred). For days with a quiz, your answers and score.
• School of Ministry: what you give us when you apply — your name, email, phone number, salvation experience, church, whether you are a worker, why you are joining and how you will attend — and any assignments you submit.
• Testimonies: your name, your testimony and, if you provide one, your photo.
• Messages: anything you send us by email.
• Technical information: like every website, our hosting and security providers receive your IP address and basic details of your device and browser when you visit, to deliver the site and protect it from attacks. We do not use analytics or advertising trackers.

Why we use it

• To give you an account and sign you in — needed to provide the service you asked for.
• To run the challenges and the School of Ministry: recording your reports and quiz scores, reviewing applications and assignments, and following up with you about your participation, including by phone or WhatsApp — needed to provide the programme you joined, and based on your consent when you give us your number.
• To show the leaderboard, which encourages participants — you agree to this when you join a challenge.
• To publish testimonies — only with the permission of the person who gave it.
• To keep the site secure and prevent misuse — our legitimate interest in protecting the ministry and its members.
• To meet legal obligations where the law requires it.

Who can see it

• Ministry administrators can see account details, challenge reports, quiz scores and School of Ministry applications, to run the programmes.
• Other signed-in participants see your full name (under-18s: first name and initial only) with your quiz points and the number of days you reported, on the challenge leaderboard. They do not see your reports, answers, email, phone number or date of birth.
• Everyone can read published testimonies, with the name and photo of the person who gave them.
• Service providers that work for us: the companies that host the website and database, Cloudflare (secure delivery and protection from attacks), and ZeptoMail by Zoho (sending sign-in codes and emails). They may only use your information to provide their service to us.
• WhatsApp: if you choose to join the Pastor BM WhatsApp platform, WhatsApp (Meta) handles that under its own privacy policy, and other members of the group can see your phone number.

We never sell your personal information or share it for advertising.

Some of our providers store information outside Nigeria. When that happens we rely on the safeguards the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 allows, such as the provider’s contractual commitments to protect it.

How long we keep it

• Your account: until you ask us to delete it.
• Challenge reports, quiz results and School of Ministry records: kept as part of the ministry’s ongoing records of its programmes, so you and the ministry can look back on your journey, until you ask us to delete them.
• Testimonies: while they are published, or until you ask us to remove them.
• Sign-in codes: they stop working after a few minutes.

Your rights

Under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, you can ask us to:

• give you a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• correct anything that is wrong or incomplete;
• delete your information;
• stop or limit how we use it, or object to a particular use;
• give you your information in a format you can take elsewhere;
• withdraw consent you gave, such as for a published testimony or the leaderboard.

Email [email protected] from the address on your account. We will reply within one month. If you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (ndpc.gov.ng).

Keeping it safe

The site is served over an encrypted connection (HTTPS), signing in needs a code sent to your email, and only ministry administrators can open the admin area. No system is completely secure, so if we ever learn of a breach that puts your information at risk, we will tell you and the regulator as the law requires.

Young people

You need to be 13 or older to create an account; we do not knowingly collect information from anyone younger, and will delete it if we find we have. From 13 to 17, a parent or guardian must agree first. We do not collect phone numbers from under-18s, do not invite them to the WhatsApp platform, and show only their first name and initial on leaderboards. Parents and guardians can contact us about their child’s information at any time. See our Safeguarding Policy.

Cookies

We use a small number of cookies and similar browser storage, mainly to keep you signed in. See our Cookie Policy.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top of this page, and tell you on the site or by email when a change is significant.