Privacy Policy

• Account details: your email address and password. Passwords are never stored in a readable form. They are hashed with Argon2id, which is a one way operation, so we cannot recover or tell you your password.
• Profile details: your display name, your @handle, profile photo, a short bio, preferred Bible translation, language, theme, time zone, and spiritual focus. Telling us your gender is optional.
• Content you create: reflections, journal entries, prayers and prayer requests, messages and direct messages, community posts, and any images you upload, such as a community banner.
• Connections: the communities and prayer groups you join, the members you follow, and the members you block.
• How you are doing: if you use the mood check-in, the answer you give. It is encrypted, it is visible only to you, it is never aggregated, and it earns you no points.

• Device information: an app generated device identifier (a random value specific to this app, not a hardware or advertising ID), your platform (iOS or Android), and the app version.
• Activity needed to run the App: the days you were active, which drives your streak, your points, and your progress.
• Diagnostics: if the App hits an error, we collect limited technical information to fix it. We strip personal details such as your email, name, tokens, and message contents before the report is stored.

We do not use advertising identifiers, and we do not track you across other apps or websites.

If you turn on biometric sign-in (Face ID, Touch ID, or a fingerprint), the check happens on your device. We never receive or store your fingerprint or face data.

To make it work, a cryptographic key is created and kept in your device's secure storage, and only the public half is known to us.

• To provide the App: your profile, your preferences, your reading, and your progress such as points and badges.
• To run the community and prayer features you choose to use.
• To send the notifications you have turned on, and to write to you about your account.
• To keep the App secure, prevent abuse, and fix problems.

We do not use your content to build a profile of you for advertising, and we do not sell it.

If you allow push notifications, we register a push token for your device so reminders and updates can reach it.

You can turn notifications off at any time, in the App or in your device settings. When you sign out or turn them off, the token is revoked and deregistered so it is no longer used for delivery. A revoked token may remain in our records for a period before it is cleared.

You can also choose which categories of notification you receive, and set quiet hours so nothing arrives at night.

We do not sell your personal information.

Content you share in a community or with another member is visible to those people. You choose whether and where to share it.

We use service providers that process information on our behalf, under contract and for no purpose of their own:

• Expo, for delivering the app and its push notifications.
• Apple and Google, where you choose to sign in with them, and to deliver push notifications to your device.
• Our email provider, for account email such as verification and password resets.
• Our hosting provider, along with the database and cache that run the service.

We may disclose information where the law requires it, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of our members and the App.

• Access and update: you can edit your profile in the App at any time.
• Export: you can request a copy of your account and platform data from within the App. That archive covers your profile, settings, points and the ledger behind them, notifications, referrals, session and device records, and your consents. It does not yet include your devotional, journal, prayer, community or chat content. When the archive is ready, the download link works for 72 hours.
• Deletion: you can delete your account from within the App, or from this website. See the section below.

Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to object to or restrict certain processing, or to complain to your data protection authority. Write to us and we will help.

Deleting your account starts a 30 day grace period. During it, the account is closed and inaccessible, and you can contact us to stop the deletion. After the grace period your data is permanently purged.

A few things survive, and we would rather say so than surprise you. Messages and posts you wrote inside a community are kept so the conversation other people took part in still makes sense, with your authorship removed. We also keep the limited records we are legally required to keep.

We keep your information for as long as your account is open, or as long as we need it to run the App.

Diagnostics are handled separately. They are stripped of personal details, and we do not currently apply a fixed retention period to them. We would rather tell you that than name a period we do not enforce.

Connections to our servers use TLS. Passwords are hashed with Argon2id. Sign-in tokens are held in your device's secure storage, never in ordinary app storage.

Your journal entries, private prayer requests, and mood check-ins are encrypted before they are stored, which also means they cannot be searched on our side. That is deliberate.

No system is completely secure, but we work to protect your information and to fix what we find.

Thy Lantern is for people aged 13 and over, and it is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

If you are 13 to 17, use the App with the knowledge and permission of a parent or guardian. Where your local law sets a higher age before you can consent to your data being processed on your own, often 16, a parent or guardian needs to give that consent for you.

The App shows no advertising to anyone, and we do not use third-party analytics or tracking tools, whatever your age.

We want to be straightforward about this: the App does not currently enforce an age check at sign up. If you believe a child under 13, or a young person without the consent their local law requires, has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

The App is operated by SMART VUE CONSULTS LLC. Your information may be processed in other countries by the providers listed above, under appropriate protections.

We may update this policy. If a change is material we will take reasonable steps to tell you in the App. The effective date above is when this version took effect.

Questions about your privacy or this policy? Write to support@thylantern.com.