What this prototype actually does.

Thorns & Light is under construction and is not open for public reliance. The community board, prayer requests, accounts, and the service directory are prototype features. They may change, be reset, or be removed, and you should not place anything here that you would be harmed by losing or by having read.

This page describes what the prototype actually does today. Where a feature is not finished, we say so rather than promise a protection we have not built.

You can read every article, prayer, saint profile, and resource page on this site without an account and without signing in. Nothing on the reading side asks you to identify yourself.

Ordinary server logs may record requests, as they do on any website.

The prototype includes an optional account system, used for writing in the community, sending a prayer intention, or saving service opportunities. Creating one involves an email address and a confirmation that you are eighteen or older, and it stores a profile record with the display name you choose.

Account data is held in the site's hosted database. Account deletion and data export are not automated yet. If you want an account or its content removed, write through the contact page and a person will do it by hand.

If those features are enabled for your account, posts and comments you submit are stored on the server and, once approved for publication, are shown publicly on the site. A post published as Anonymous carries the label Anonymous instead of your display name, and the database withholds the author from public reads. Site administrators can still see which account wrote it.

There is a public prayer request area in the prototype. Requests you choose to submit as public prayer requests are visible to other visitors. A prayer intention submitted as private is not published anywhere on the site.

Because this is a prototype, do not treat anything you submit as confidential. Please leave out full names, addresses, phone numbers, workplaces, parishes, medical record details, and identifying legal details, and do not write about another person without their consent.

We do not sell, rent, or trade personal information. We do not place advertising trackers on pages about abuse, crisis, or prayer. We do not require an account in order to reach help, because no one should have to create a record to get assistance.

We do not report what you write to a parish, a diocese, an employer, or a family member. This site is not a safeguarding authority and does not act as one. We do not process payments at any point; donation links go to an organisation's own official site.

We are not claiming a formal security programme, an audited retention schedule, encryption guarantees, or independently verified access controls. Those are not in place, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise while the site is a prototype.

If it would be dangerous for something you write to be seen by anyone else, the safest course is not to write it here.

If someone monitors your phone or computer, browsing history is a real risk. Every page here carries a Quick Exit control that leaves the site immediately, and we keep page titles unremarkable in browser history where we can.

Where possible, use a device the other person cannot access, such as a library computer or a trusted friend's phone. Advocates can usually talk by text or chat when a call is not safe.

Accounts are for adults, and account creation asks you to confirm you are eighteen or older. Young people do read pages like these, so crisis resources listed here include services that serve minors, and nothing on the site asks a young person for identifying details.