Bahá'í Life

Privacy Policy

Last updated 8 November 2026

This policy explains what Bahá'í Life (“the app”) does with information on your phone. It covers both the iPhone app and the Android app; where they differ, it says so. The app is made by Alexander Bahremand (“we”, “us”). Its App Store privacy label is Data Not Collected, and its Google Play data safety section says No data collected.

What stays on your phone

Everything you create in the app is saved only on your phone, inside the app’s own storage (on iPhone, shared with its widgets). This includes:

• your reflections and notes, and any photos and voice notes you add to them;
• the prayers and passages you’re memorising, your progress, and any recordings of your own voice;
• your favourites, highlights, bookmarks and reading progress, and on iPhone your reading plans;
• your daily practice and counter history, and your settings.

We have no server that stores any of it, and we can’t see it. There’s no syncing between devices.

Permissions, and what each is used for

The app asks for each permission only for the features below. You can say no, and change your mind at any time: on iPhone in Settings → Bahá'í Life, and on Android in Settings → Apps → Bahá'í Life. The rest of the app keeps working without them.

Location

Used on your phone to work out sunrise and sunset, the times for the Obligatory Prayers, when the daily quote widget changes between morning and evening, and the direction of the Qiblih for the compass. The app asks only while you’re using it; on Android it asks only for your approximate location. Your most recent location is kept on your phone so the widgets can use it. It’s never sent anywhere.

Calendars

Used to show your own events beside the Badí’ dates, in the app (and on iPhone in its Calendar widget), and to let you add and edit events. Your events stay in your phone’s own calendars, and the app never sends them anywhere.

Notifications and alarms

Used only for the reminders you choose: daily practice (on Android, including reminders set by sunrise or sunset), Holy Day and Feast reminders on Android, reading plans on iPhone, and memorisation. They’re scheduled on your phone. The app doesn’t use push notifications from a server. On Android, the app also asks to set exact alarms, only so these reminders arrive on time.

Microphone

Used only when you record a voice note in Reflections (after you turn on Voice notes in the app’s settings), or when you tap Record Your Voice to record yourself reading a text you’re memorising. Recordings are saved on your phone and never uploaded. The app never listens at any other time. When you turn on Repeat, your own recording can keep playing with the screen locked until you stop it; on Android, this shows as a media playback notification while it plays.

Photos

If you turn on photos in Reflections, you choose a photo with your phone’s own photo picker. The app sees only the photo you pick, not your library, and saves a copy of it on your phone. On Android, the app doesn’t ask for permission to read your photos at all.

Face ID and biometric lock

If you turn on the Reflections lock, your phone asks you to unlock before Reflections open: on iPhone with Face ID (or your passcode), and on Android with your fingerprint, face or screen lock. This is handled entirely by your phone’s system: the app only learns whether you were recognised, and never receives your face or fingerprint data.

What the app fetches from the internet

Bahá’í World News

To show the latest stories in the app and in the News widget, the app downloads the public news feed from news.bahai.org, now and then in the background. To show a story’s photo, it also reads the beginning of the story’s web page and downloads that photo. You can turn photos off in the app’s settings, under Writings → Show photos in News.

These are ordinary web requests, like visiting a website. The app sends nothing about you with them, but, as with any website, the server receives the request and your IP address. news.bahai.org is run by the Bahá’í International Community and has its own privacy policy.

Links you open

If you open a link from the app, such as a news story or the Bahá’í Reference Library, it opens in your browser inside the app: Safari on iPhone, or your default browser (in a Custom Tab) on Android. The website’s own privacy policy applies there. The browser keeps what you do there to itself; the app can’t see it.

Your watch (Android)

If you use the app on a Wear OS watch, your phone sends the watch only your display settings: month names, date order, whether Holy Days are shown, and the colour. They go directly to your own watch over Google’s Wear OS connection between your devices, never to us. Nothing else is sent to the watch.

Tips

You can leave an optional tip in the app. Tips are in-app purchases handled entirely by Apple through the App Store on iPhone, and by Google through Google Play on Android. We don’t receive your name, payment details, Apple Account or Google Account. Apple and Google give us only the sales reports they give every developer. A tip unlocks nothing; the whole app is free.

Sharing and exporting

Nothing leaves the app unless you choose to share it. When you share a passage or export your reflections as a PDF or text, your phone’s share sheet opens and you decide where it goes. If your reflections are locked, you’re asked to unlock first.

Backups

Because your data is stored in the app on your phone, it’s included in your phone’s own backup if you use one: on iPhone, iCloud Backup or a backup to your computer, made and protected by Apple under your Apple Account; on Android, your phone’s backup, made and protected by Google under your Google Account. We can’t access these backups. On Android, you can also back up all your data to a file of your own (Settings → Backup); the app makes one only when you ask it to, and you decide where it’s kept.

Crash reports

The app has no crash reporting of its own. If you’ve chosen to share analytics with app developers in your iPhone’s settings (Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements), Apple may pass us anonymous crash reports. On Android, if you’ve allowed Usage & diagnostics in your phone’s settings, Google Play may pass us anonymous reports of crashes and of times the app stopped responding. That choice is yours, and you can turn it off at any time.

If you email us

If you write to us at bahailife@proton.me, we receive your email address and whatever you write. When you use Contact & Feedback in the iPhone app, the new email also includes the app’s version, the iOS version and your iPhone model, to help with support. You can see these lines and delete them before sending. We use your email only to reply to you, never for marketing, and we don’t share it with anyone.

Children

The app collects no personal information from anyone, including children.

Deleting your data

You can delete anything you’ve made from inside the app. Deleting the app removes all of its data from your phone, though copies may stay in backups you made earlier. To keep your reflections, export them first.

Changes to this policy

If what the app does with your information ever changes, we’ll update this page and the date at the top before the change reaches the app.

Contact

Questions about privacy are welcome at bahailife@proton.me.