Privacy Policy

This policy explains what information the Havenly app (“Havenly,” “we,” “us”) collects, how it is used, and the choices you have. It applies to the Havenly iPhone app and this website.

Information that stays on your device

Most of what you put into Havenly is stored only on your iPhone, in the app’s private storage. This includes:

• your name and anything you share about your life or season during setup;
• your letters and journal entries, the seasons you name and look back on, sermon notes and saved pages;
• your prayer list and the answers you record;
• your Book of Prayer, reminder times and app preferences.

We don’t have a copy of this information on our servers. Deleting the app deletes it. If you use iCloud or device backups, Apple may include it in your backup under Apple’s terms.

AI-written content

Havenly uses AI services to write reflections, studies, prayers, family devotions and other content, and to read text aloud. When you use these features, the text needed for that request is sent through our secure server (hosted on Google Cloud) to:

• Anthropic (Claude), to write text and to screen community posts for harmful content; and
• OpenAI, to turn text into spoken audio for the Listen feature.

A request may include your first name, the life context you shared, the day’s passage, or a journal entry or prayer you chose to bring. We send only what that request needs, and never your email, phone number or contact details. These providers process the text to return a response and, under their standard API terms, do not use it to train their models. Our server passes requests along without saving their contents. Generated audio is saved on your device so it can replay without downloading again.

AI-written content can be imperfect. It is offered for reflection and is not a substitute for Scripture, your church, or professional advice.

Your Day with God (calendar)

Your Day with God is optional and off until you connect your calendar. If you turn it on, Havenly asks iPhone for permission to read your calendars and then uses only the title and time of each event — never attendees, notes, locations or contact details. Once a day, those titles and times are sent with the day’s verse, your first name and the life context you shared, through our server to Anthropic, to write a short note for each event. As with other AI features, nothing is saved on our server. The notes and your settings (which calendars to use, events you’ve silenced) are kept on your phone, and reminders before each event are scheduled on your device. Events that seem personal are shown on the lock screen without their title. Havenly never adds, changes or deletes anything in your calendar.

You can choose which calendars to use, silence any event, or disconnect at any time from the settings on the Your Day with God card, or turn off access in iPhone Settings › Havenly › Calendars.

Havens (community features)

When you use Havens, the app signs you in anonymously with Firebase Authentication, which creates a random ID that isn’t linked to your name, email or phone number (until you choose to create an account to join a group or church; see Accounts and group chat). What you choose to share is stored in Google Cloud Firestore and visible to other Havenly users (or, for a group, to its members). This includes:

• prayer requests, praises, answers and replies you post;
• the display name you choose to show with them;
• groups you create or join, and when you mark that you prayed for someone;
• reports you submit about content.

Posts are screened automatically before they appear and can be reported by other users. We remove objectionable content and may remove users who post it. You can delete your own posts and answers at any time from the post’s menu, and block other users.

Your church on Havenly

If you join your church in Havenly with its code, your church’s leaders can post sermon weeks and reading plans for you, and see how their church is doing as a whole. To make that possible:

• A daily signal, with no content. On days you use Havenly, the app sends one small record under a random ID: the date, how many of the day’s practices you finished, which church plan days you completed (for you, or the family version with your kids), and which Havenly groups you’re in. It never includes your journal, letters, prayers, prayer cards or anything you write.
• Totals only. Your church’s Pastor’s Pulse shows totals, such as the share of members who opened Scripture this week. Numbers are hidden for fewer than 5 people.
• Your name only if you choose. If you turn on “Share my rhythm with my group leader,” your group’s leader sees your first name and how many days you read this week. You can turn it off anytime.
• Things you choose to send. Prayer requests you share with your church are seen by its members, and the Pastor’s Pulse may summarize their themes without names. Questions you ask about Sunday, and the one-line takeaways you choose to send after a Sermon Week day (“What stayed with you?”), reach your pastor without your name; your pastor may see them word for word and as a summary of themes. If you ask a pastor to reach out, or say you’re new, your church’s leaders see your name, the contact details you give, and your message.

If your church pays for the church plan, Havenly confirms your membership so you get Havenly Plus. You can leave your church anytime from its page in the app, and “Delete my profile” removes your church membership too.

Accounts and group chat

You can use Havenly without an account. To join a group or church, or start a group, you sign in with Apple, Google or an email address and password, through Firebase Authentication. Your account is linked to the same random ID your phone already had, so nothing you’ve done is lost. We receive your email address (with Sign in with Apple you can hide it) and, if you give it, your first name. We use them only to sign you in and to show your name to the groups you join. We never post for you or share your email.

• Group chat. Messages and prayer requests you send in a group chat are stored in Google Cloud Firestore and seen by that group’s members, with your name. Members can mark that they prayed. The group’s leader can remove messages. A simple filter hides some offensive words.
• Reporting and blocking. You can report a message to Havenly, which keeps the group, the message and who reported it so we can review it, and you can block someone so you no longer see their messages on your phone.
• Notifications. So group messages reach your phone, Havenly stores your phone’s notification token under your account, read only by our server. You can mute any group.
• Your church’s Sermon Week may post each day’s discussion question into your church groups’ chats.
• Youth groups. A church can create a youth group chat for students 13 and older. Students confirm their age when they join; Havenly doesn’t collect birthdates and isn’t intended for children under 13. The church’s approved adult leaders and students’ parents or guardians who join with the parent code can read the whole chat. Parents can’t post, the chat opens only once two leaders have joined, and there are no private messages.
• Announcements. Your church’s leaders can post announcements, which members of that church see in the app.
• Planning Center. If your church connects its Planning Center account, Havenly reads its groups and their members’ emails so it can suggest your groups to you (matched by the email you sign in with), and adds care requests you choose to send to a Planning Center workflow with the name and contact details you gave. Havenly never sends your Scripture, prayer, journal or chat activity to Planning Center. Group attendance your leader takes stays in Havenly.

Your journal, letters, prayer cards and everything else personal stay on your phone and are never part of group chat. You can sign out in Me › Account. “Delete my profile” deletes your account, your group chat messages and your notification token.

Analytics and app health

We use Google Firebase Analytics and Firebase Performance Monitoring to understand, in aggregate, how the app is used and how well it performs — for example, which screens are opened and how long they take to load. This uses device and app identifiers and general information such as device model, OS version and approximate region. It does not include the contents of your journal, prayers or posts.

Measuring our ads (Meta)

We advertise Havenly on Facebook and Instagram. To learn which of those ads help people find Havenly, the app includes Meta’s app events software (from Meta Platforms, Inc.). It tells Meta when the app is installed and opened, and may include when a Havenly Plus trial or subscription begins, along with technical information such as your device model, iOS version, app version and IP address.

On iPhone, Havenly first asks for your permission to track, using Apple’s App Tracking Transparency. Only if you choose Allow is your device’s advertising identifier (IDFA) shared, which lets Meta connect app activity with ads you saw on its apps. If you choose Ask App Not to Track, it isn’t shared, and Meta receives only the limited, aggregated measurements Apple permits.

We never send Meta your name, email, journal, prayers, calendar, posts or anything you write. Meta handles this information under its own Privacy Policy. You can change your answer at any time in iPhone Settings › Privacy & Security › Tracking, and manage ad preferences in your Facebook or Instagram settings.

Subscriptions

Havenly Plus is sold through Apple’s App Store. Apple processes your payment; we never see your card details. We use RevenueCat to confirm your subscription status, which involves an anonymous app user ID and your App Store purchase receipts.

After running costs, Plus proceeds fund church plants (Havens), and Plus members can choose which Haven their Plus supports. So we can divide proceeds among the Havens each month, the app keeps one small record in Google Cloud Firestore under a random ID (the same kind of anonymous ID Havens uses): the Haven you chose (or “all Havens equally”), whether your plan is monthly or yearly, whether you’re in a free trial, when your subscription started and when it renews or ends, and RevenueCat’s anonymous app user ID. It contains no name, email, payment details or anything you write, and we use it only to count support for each Haven. Deleting your profile deletes it.

Notifications

Reminders are scheduled on your device. Turning them on doesn’t send any information to us.

When you pray for a Haven, Havenly can notify you when its pastor shares an update. For this, your phone registers with Apple and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging for that Haven’s updates, using a random push token rather than anything about you. Stop these anytime in iPhone Settings › Havenly › Notifications, or by removing the Haven’s prayer card.

What we don’t do

• We don’t sell or rent your personal information.
• We don’t show ads inside Havenly.
• We don’t share anything you write with advertisers. The only advertising data we share is described in Measuring our ads, and only device-level tracking if you allow it.
• We don’t access your location, contacts, camera, microphone or photos.
• We read your calendar only if you turn on Your Day with God, and never store it.

Children

Havenly is meant for adults and teens 13 and older. The Family Devotion feature is written for parents to read with their children; children shouldn’t use Havens. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has shared information in Havens, contact us and we’ll delete it.

Keeping and securing information

Community posts remain until you delete them or we remove them. Information sent to our server and AI providers is encrypted in transit. No system is perfectly secure, but we limit what we collect so that there’s less to protect.

Your choices and rights

• Delete everything: in Me → Delete my profile (at the bottom). After you type DELETE to confirm, Havenly erases the information stored on your phone, your posts, answers, group chat messages and group memberships, and deletes your account or anonymous ID. Your Plus support record is deleted too. Anonymous “prayed for” marks, which contain no content, may remain in aggregate counts. Groups you started stay open for their members, without your name.
• Delete individual things: delete journal entries, saved pages and prayers in the app, or use “Delete my post” and “Delete my answer” in Havens.
• By email: if you no longer have the app, email us and we’ll help.
• Notifications: turn reminders off in Profile or in iPhone Settings.
• Tracking: change your answer in iPhone Settings › Privacy & Security › Tracking.
• Calendar: disconnect it from the Your Day with God card on Today, or in iPhone Settings › Havenly › Calendars.
• Access or other requests: depending on where you live (for example, under the GDPR or California law), you may have rights to access, correct or delete your information. Email us and we’ll respond within 30 days.

Service providers

We rely on Google (Firebase and Google Cloud), Anthropic, OpenAI, RevenueCat and Apple to run Havenly, and on Meta to measure our ads. Each handles information only to provide its service to us, except that Meta also uses ad measurement data as described in its own policy. Information may be processed in the United States and other countries where these providers operate.

Changes

If we change this policy, we’ll update the date above and, for significant changes, let you know in the app.

Contact

Questions or requests: havenlyapp@gmail.com