Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy
The short version
- Your reading stays on your phone. Your reading history, progress, highlights, notes, saved verses and collections, and reflections are stored on your device only. We never receive them.
- We treat your reading habits as sensitive personal data under Article 9 of the GDPR, because what someone reads in the Bible can reveal their religious beliefs.
- No account, no analytics. You never sign up, and the app sends no usage or tracking events.
- No backups. This data is never backed up to the cloud or copied to a new phone. If you uninstall Swipture or change phones, it is gone.
- Ads are never personalised and never use your reading history. Premium removes them.
- Sharing a verse is your choice. It goes only to the app you pick, and nothing is sent to us.
- You can delete everything at any time: Settings → Privacy → Delete My Data.
1. Who we are
Swipture is published by FaithApp ("we", "us"). For the limited personal data described in this policy that reaches us or our service providers, we are the data controller. You can reach us at sevenstar.neeraj@gmail.com.
2. What stays on your device
Swipture keeps everything it knows about your reading in a database inside the app's private storage on your phone. This data is not sent to our servers — we do not run any servers that could receive it.
Your reading (special-category data)
| What | Why it exists |
|---|---|
| Reading history — when a reading session started and ended, which translation, and the exact verse you stopped on | So the feed reopens on the exact verse you left |
| Reading progress — which chapters you have finished | Chapter progress in the book view and the Progress tab |
| Reading plans — which plan you started and when, and which of its readings you have finished | Your reading plan and how far through it you are |
| Highlights and notes on verses | So your marks appear on the verse |
| Collections and the verses saved in them | Your saved verses, including Favourites |
| Reflections you write during Pause & Reflect | Your Journal |
Your settings
The app also stores your preferences on the device: the Bible translation you chose, text and theme settings, whether Pause & Reflect is on and how often it appears, your daily reminder (on or off, its time, and whether it shows the day's verse), narration speed, whether you have finished the first-run screens, how many times the app has been opened, the app version for which we last asked for a store rating, and your place in Shuffle mode. These are settings, not reading history, and they also never leave your device.
3. Special-category data (GDPR Article 9)
Under GDPR Article 9, we treat your religious reading habits as sensitive personal data, which is why we keep them on your device by default. Information about what someone reads in scripture, how often, and what they write about it can reveal religious or philosophical beliefs, even indirectly.
We therefore designed Swipture so that this data:
- is stored only on your device;
- is never sent to us, to advertisers, to our payment provider or to any other third party;
- is never included in crash reports or diagnostics;
- is never used to choose or personalise ads;
- is never backed up to a cloud service or transferred to another device (see section 8);
- can be erased by you at any time (see section 10).
Because the data never leaves your device, we do not process it on our side at all.
4. What we do not collect
- No account: no name, email address, password, phone number or date of birth.
- No usage analytics: the app sends no events about which screens you open, how long you read, or how often you use it.
- No location, contacts, photos, microphone or camera.
- No syncing of your reading data between devices.
- No search history: verse search runs entirely on your phone, against the Bible text built into the app. What you type is not saved, not logged and not sent anywhere; it is gone when you leave the search screen.
If you email us, we receive what you choose to write, your email address, and — only if you leave the pre-filled lines in place — the app version and your phone's operating system and version. The pre-filled email contains nothing else: no device identifier, no translation, and nothing you have read or written in the app.
5. Third-party services
A small number of services outside the app are involved. None of them receives your reading history, highlights, notes, collections or reflections.
Google AdMob and Google's consent tool (advertising)
The free version of Swipture shows ads served by Google AdMob: an ad page between verses in the feed (never before the fifth verse you read, then about one in every fifteen), a banner on the other screens, "Sponsored" cards in some lists, and occasionally a full-screen ad when you switch between tabs (never in your first session, and at most a few times per session). Every ad request asks for non-personalised ads, on both iOS and Android, and contains no information about what you are reading — no verse, book, search or note is ever part of it.
Where the law requires it, Google's User Messaging Platform (a certified consent tool) asks for your choice before any ad is requested: in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland a consent message, which you can decline as easily as accept; in US states with privacy laws, a notice that lets you opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information for advertising. You can change your choice at any time in Settings → Privacy & ad choices. We do not show Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt, because the app does not track you across other companies' apps and websites.
When an ad is requested, Google receives information about your device and connection that its ad services need to deliver and measure the ad and to prevent fraud — such as your IP address, device type, operating system, app version and, on Android, the device's advertising ID where the system makes it available. Google describes this in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services. Premium subscribers are not shown ads, and the app does not start the ad service for them.
RevenueCat and the App Store / Google Play (purchases)
Purchases are processed by Apple or Google; we never see your card or payment details. We use RevenueCat, Inc. to confirm whether you hold Swipture Premium. RevenueCat receives an anonymous app-user identifier it generates itself (not linked to your name or email), your purchase and subscription records from the store, and basic device and app information such as platform, app version and country/store region. We do not send RevenueCat any reading data. See RevenueCat's privacy policy.
Crash reports
This version of Swipture sends no crash reports or diagnostics. If we add crash reporting, we will update this policy before that version is released; a crash report would contain only technical information about the error and your device, and never scripture you were reading, your highlights, notes, collections, reflections or reading history.
Store ratings
Occasionally, at most once per app version, after you save a reflection or your third saved verse, the app may ask your phone to show the App Store's or Google Play's own rating window. Your phone decides whether it appears; any rating you leave goes to Apple or Google, not to us.
Links you open
Tapping a link in the app (this policy, the Terms of Service, the online help page, the store's subscription page) opens it in your browser or store app, which then handles your data under its own policy.
6. Daily reminder
The daily reminder is off unless you turn it on. It is a local notification scheduled by your phone itself — no server is involved, and nothing about the reminder or your reading is shared with anyone. If you choose "Include today's verse", the day's verse is shown in the notification and so may be visible on your lock screen; if you leave it off, the notification contains no scripture and no reference.
7. Listening to scripture and sharing verses
Swipture reads scripture aloud using your phone's own text-to-speech voice. The app makes no network request to play audio and downloads no recordings. Some phones let their system voice use an online service; that is controlled by your phone's settings, not by Swipture.
When you tap Share on a verse, the app makes a picture of that verse on your phone and opens your phone's share sheet with it, the verse's text and a link to download Swipture. It goes only to the app or person you choose there, which then handles it under its own policy. Nothing is sent to us, and the app does not record what you shared.
8. No backups, no transfer
This data is never backed up to the cloud or copied to a new phone, so it does not come with you to a new phone and is gone if you uninstall Swipture. This applies to your reading history, progress, highlights, notes, collections, reflections and your settings. We made this choice deliberately, because it keeps sensitive data off every server — including Apple's and Google's backup services. The app has no export feature in this version.
A Premium purchase is recorded by Apple or Google, not in this data, so you can restore it on a new phone with Restore purchases.
9. Device permissions
| Permission | Used for |
|---|---|
| Notifications | The daily reminder, only if you turn it on (Android asks when you accept it) |
| Run at start-up (Android) | Re-scheduling your reminder after the phone restarts |
| Foreground service and wake lock (Android) | Continuing to read aloud when the screen is off, with lock-screen controls |
| Internet and network state | Ads, the consent form and purchases |
| Billing | Buying and restoring Premium through the store |
| Advertising ID and ad-services permissions (Android) | Added by Google's ad library; see section 5. You can reset or delete the advertising ID in your phone's settings. |
10. Your choices and rights
- Delete everything: Settings → Privacy → Delete My Data permanently erases your reading history, progress, highlights, notes, collections and saved verses, and reflections from your device. It keeps your settings. Uninstalling the app erases everything.
- See your data: everything is visible in the app itself — the Journal, Collections, your highlights and the book progress view.
- Change ad consent, or opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information for advertising: Settings → Privacy & ad choices (shown where these choices apply).
- Turn things off: Pause & Reflect and the daily reminder can each be switched off in Settings.
Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR, the UK GDPR or California law), you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to processing of personal data, to data portability, and to withdraw consent. Because your reading data is held only on your device, you exercise those rights over it directly in the app. For data held by Google or RevenueCat, contact us and we will help, or contact them directly. You also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority. We do not sell or share personal data for cross-context behavioural advertising.
11. How long data is kept
Data on your device stays until you delete it in the app, clear the app's storage, or uninstall the app. We keep support emails only as long as needed to answer them. Google and RevenueCat keep their data under their own retention policies.
12. Children
Swipture is not directed at children under 13, or the higher age your country sets for consent to data processing, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them.
13. Security
Your reading data sits in the app's private storage, which other apps cannot read, protected by your phone's own security. Anyone who can unlock your phone and open the app can see it. Connections to Google and RevenueCat use encryption in transit.
14. Changes to this policy
If we change how Swipture handles data, we will update this page and the effective date above, and where the change is significant we will tell you in the app before it takes effect. Any change that would let reading data leave your device would need your separate, explicit opt-in — it would never be switched on by default.
15. Contact
Email sevenstar.neeraj@gmail.com. Every message is read and answered by a person — there is no chatbot and no automated ticket system.
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