Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Path & Light (“we”, “us”) is a small independent project based in San Francisco, California. This policy explains what information the Path & Light app for iPhone and iPad, its App Clip, its widgets and pathandlight.com (together, the “Service”) collect, why, who helps us process it, and the choices you have. For any privacy question or request, write to hello@pathandlight.com.

2. Information we collect

Your account

You sign in with Apple, Google or an email address. From Apple or Google we receive a stable account identifier; we turn it into a keyed one-way code (a hash) and use that code as your account ID. For email sign-in, we use your address to send a six-digit code and derive your account ID from it in the same way. We don’t keep your email address in our account database, and we don’t receive your Apple or Google password. We also keep session records so you stay signed in securely. When you sign in with Apple or Google, we keep the sign-in token they give us, stored securely, so that deleting your account can also disconnect Path & Light from your Apple or Google account.

What you create in the app

When you’re signed in, the app syncs the following to your account so it appears on your other devices and survives a lost phone:

• journal entries and saved prayers, including titles and any passage you link to them;
• highlights, bookmarks and notes on verses;
• where you are reading, and reading plan progress;
• the days you read, listened, prayed or reflected, which power your streak;
• profile details you choose to add, such as your first name, gender and home church; and
• settings such as your chosen translation, text size and reminder times.

Journal entries and prayers can reveal your religious beliefs, health or other sensitive matters. We use them only to store and sync them for you. We never read them, analyse them, use them for marketing, or send them to an AI model unless you choose to (see section 4). The people on your prayer list are the one exception you control with a switch: see “Questions you ask” below.

Questions you ask

When you use Ask, we send your question, the recent turns of that conversation, and any passage or journal excerpt you choose to include to our server, which passes them to an AI model to write the answer. So that answers fit you, each question also carries the first name, faith journey, church tradition and recent feelings you gave the app, when you gave them, and the names of the people on your prayer list with what you’re praying about for each. This is on by default. Turn off “Remember me” in Ask to stop sending all of it, or turn off “Ask remembers them” for one person on your prayer list. When you ask Ask to explain a verse, none of these details are sent. When you create a prayer, we send the feelings you pick and anything you write about what’s on your heart. See section 4.

Subscriptions

If you subscribe to Path & Light Plus, Apple handles payment; we never see your card details. We and our subscription service provider receive what’s needed to confirm your subscription: the product, price paid, dates, trial and renewal status, the storefront country and a transaction ID. If you join through your church, we record that your account belongs to that church’s plan.

How the app is used

So we can tell which features people use and where the app could be clearer, the app sends our subscription service provider a few simple facts linked to your account. These are counts (such as how many times you’ve used reading, prayer, journal, audio, Ask, study notes or sharing), how far you got through the welcome tour and sign-in, which upgrade screen you saw and where you opened it from, your interface language, and the days you used the app. Before you sign in, these stay on your device and are sent only once you have an account. They never include what you read, wrote, prayed, asked or searched for. Sometimes we show two versions of a screen to different people to see which works better; we record which version you saw.

Technical information

Like any online service, our servers see your IP address and basic request details when the app or website connects. We use them to deliver the Service and to stop abuse. For rate limiting we keep a salted, time-limited hash of the IP address, not the address itself. Our server request logs are switched off.

Messages and the waitlist

If you email us, we receive your address and whatever you write. If you joined the launch waitlist on this website, we hold the email address you gave, the time you signed up, the version of the consent you accepted, and which page of this website you signed up on (so we can tell which pages are useful).

3. What stays on your iPhone

• Ask history. Your past conversations are stored only on your device. They are not synced or backed up by us.
• Location. If you search for nearby churches, the app uses your location on the device to query Apple Maps. We don’t receive or store it.
• Downloads. Bible translations and audio you download are stored on your device.
• Reminders. Reminder notifications are scheduled on your device; there is no push server.
• Widget and device settings, such as widget choices and hints you’ve dismissed.

Your device’s own backups (for example, iCloud Backup) may include app data. Those are governed by Apple, not by us.

4. AI features

Answers and written prayers come from Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, our AI provider. If Anthropic is busy, Cloudflare Workers AI answers instead. We send the provider your question, recent conversation context, anything you explicitly chose to include, the profile details and prayer list described in section 2 (“Questions you ask”), together with our own instructions. Journal sync never sends your writing to an AI model. An excerpt from your journal reaches the model only if you select it and confirm.

We don’t keep a record of your conversations on our servers, with two exceptions. First, answers to “Explain” on a verse and to the app’s own suggested questions are saved without anything that identifies you, and only when no personal details went into them, so the next reader gets the same answer instantly. Second, when you report an answer, we keep that question, the answer and your note so we can review it (see section 7). To enforce free and paid usage limits, we keep minimal counters linked to your account, such as how many questions you asked on a given day and their approximate cost. These counters contain no content and are deleted within 35 days. Neither Anthropic nor Cloudflare uses your questions or the answers to train AI models.

AI answers can be wrong. Please read our Terms of Use on how to treat them.

5. How we use information

• To provide the Service: sign you in, sync your content, stream audio, answer questions and unlock Plus.
• To keep it safe and fair: prevent abuse, enforce usage limits and protect accounts.
• To understand which features are used, only through the usage facts described above.
• To reply when you contact us, and to send the one launch email if you joined the waitlist.
• To meet legal obligations.

We don’t sell or rent personal information, share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, build advertising profiles, or use your content to train AI models. The app contains no advertising or third-party tracking SDKs.

6. Who helps us

We rely on a small number of service providers, who may use your information only to provide their service to us:

• Hosting and infrastructure: servers, databases, file storage and delivery of sign-in codes.
• AI: generating answers when you use Ask or written prayers, as described in section 4.
• Sign-in: Apple or Google, if you choose to sign in with them.
• Payments and subscriptions: the App Store, and a service that manages subscription status.
• Email: the mailbox that receives messages sent to our contact address.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect the safety of any person, to address fraud or abuse, or as part of a merger or sale of the Service, in which case this policy would continue to apply to your information.

7. How long we keep it

• Account and synced content: until you delete your account. Journal entries you delete move to Deleted entries, where you can restore them for 30 days. After that, or sooner if you choose Delete permanently or Empty there, the app erases them from your iPhone. At the next sync, the synced copy is replaced by a marker that holds none of the entry’s content, and your other devices running the current app erase their copies too. We keep that content-free marker until you delete your account, so the entry isn’t synced back. Highlights, bookmarks and settings are replaced when you change them.
• AI usage counters: deleted within 35 days.
• Answer reports: deleted after 90 days, or sooner if you delete your account.
• Sign-in codes: expire after 10 minutes.
• Rate-limit hashes: expire within minutes.
• Subscription records: for as long as needed to provide Plus and to meet tax and accounting obligations.
• Waitlist: removed 12 months after you join, or sooner if you ask us.
• Emails to us: as long as needed to help you, then deleted.

Our providers’ backups may keep copies for a limited time after deletion before they are overwritten.

8. Security

Connections use HTTPS, synced data is encrypted at rest, sign-in tokens are short-lived and rotated, and access to production systems is restricted to the operator. On your iPhone, app data uses iOS file protection. Sync is not end-to-end encrypted, so treat anything you write as you would any cloud notes service. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach affecting you, we will tell you as the law requires.

9. Your choices and rights

• Delete your account in the app: Profile → Account → Delete account, or by email if you no longer have the app (see Delete your account). This removes your server account, sessions and synced copies. Journals already on your iPhone stay there until you delete the app. Deleting your account does not cancel an App Store subscription; cancel that in your Apple account settings.
• Delete individual entries in the Journal at any time. You can restore them from Deleted entries for 30 days, or erase them sooner with Delete permanently or Empty. After 30 days they are erased automatically, from your devices and from sync.
• Clear your Ask history from the Recents screen.
• Turn off location for the app in iOS Settings; everything except nearby church search keeps working.
• Leave the waitlist by emailing us from the address you registered.

Depending on where you live, including California, you may have the right to know what personal information we hold, to get a copy, to correct or delete it, and to limit the use of sensitive information. We don’t sell or share personal information and use sensitive information only to provide the Service, so there is nothing to opt out of. To make a request, email hello@pathandlight.com from the address linked to your account, or tell us how you sign in. We may need to verify that the account is yours. We won’t treat you differently for exercising these rights.

10. Children

The Service is not directed to children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect their personal information. Teens aged 13 to 17 should use Path & Light with a parent’s or guardian’s permission. If you believe a child under 13 has given us information, contact us and we will delete it. The waitlist is for adults aged 18 and over.

11. Where we operate

Path & Light is operated from the United States. Our providers may process information in the United States and other countries where they operate. The app is not currently offered in the European Union or the United Kingdom.

12. This website

pathandlight.com sets no cookies and uses no analytics, advertising pixels or browser storage. Our hosting provider processes network information such as IP addresses to deliver and protect it. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals don’t change anything, because we don’t track you to begin with.

13. Changes

If we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use information you’ve already given us, we’ll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.

14. Contact

Questions, requests or concerns: hello@pathandlight.com. A person reads every message.