Privacy and cookies
Updated 14 September 2026. This website provides the Heidelberg Catechism to help you read and learn it. We do not use advertising tracking or remarketing.
Your choice
Accept enables Google Analytics and BibleGateway verse previews. Both stay off until you accept. Declining does not restrict reading, search, or Scripture links. You can change your decision using here or in the footer. Declining after either service has loaded reloads the page to stop its scripts.
Preferences stored on your device
We use local storage to remember your theme, text size for each screen size, and whether Scripture references and available songs are visible, music volume, and whether you have seen the swipe hint. These settings remain until you change them or clear this site's browser data.
Session storage caches the catechism data used for search and remembers navigation direction for page transitions in the current tab. After analytics consent, it also records whether reading preferences have been counted in that tab. Search runs in your browser, and we do not send search words as custom analytics events. If a URL contains search words, those words may still appear in a page request to our host.
The local-storage entry hc.consent.v1 remembers your choice for analytics and verse previews for one year. If your browser blocks preference storage, reading settings still work on the current page but may not survive navigation. Browser controls may clear or shorten storage sooner.
Optional Google Analytics
If you allow analytics, Google receives usage information such as pages visited, browser and device details, referral information, and display preferences. Enhanced measurement also records scrolling, outbound clicks, downloads, and supported video or form interactions when those features are used. If sung settings are available, we record music plays and completions. This includes requests from your IP address and cookie identifiers; it should not be described as anonymous. We do not ask for your name or send search text as a custom analytics event.
The Google tag is loaded only after consent, and does not load on pages opened with a query string or fragment in the URL. On other pages, the page address and referring address supplied to analytics exclude query strings and fragments. Enhanced events may include the destination of an external link. Advertising storage, advertising personalisation, advertising user data, and Google signals are disabled in our integration. Google Analytics cookies named _ga and _ga_… may be set; we configure them to expire after one year without extending expiry on each visit. Rejecting analytics stops future collection from this page and removes accessible Google Analytics cookies for this site. It does not erase data already received by Google.
Google processes data under its own terms and may process it outside Australia. See Google's privacy policy and how Google uses information from partner sites. The analytics property's retention settings are managed separately from browser cookie expiry.
Scripture previews and external links
Accept also enables BibleGateway verse previews automatically on pages with Scripture references, with no separate checkbox. Decline keeps both analytics and previews off. BibleGateway receives connection information such as your IP address and browser details when its script loads, and the selected passage when you open a preview. It may use its own storage. If previews cannot load, the normal Scripture links remain available. Following Scripture or other external links opens another service under that service's privacy practices. See BibleGateway's privacy policy. Any music played directly on this site is served from this site's audio files.
Hosting
Our server and Cloudflare process network information needed to deliver and protect the site, including IP addresses, requested pages, and browser information. This is separate from optional Google Analytics. See Cloudflare's privacy policy. Clearing this site's cookies and storage resets the choices described above.