Privacy Policy

Sow is a Bible devotional and journaling app designed to help you grow in faith through daily scripture reading, reflection, and prayer. Your privacy is important to us, and we are committed to protecting your personal information.

Account Information

When you sign in to Sow, we collect:

• Sign in with Apple: Your Apple ID user identifier and email address (if you choose to share it)
• Sign in with Google: Your Google account identifier, email address, and display name

This information is used solely for authentication and to provide a personalized experience.

Devotional Content

Sow stores the following information on your device:

• Devotional Entries: Your personal reflections, prayers, and notes
• Reading Progress: Scripture passages you've read and completion dates
• App Preferences: Bible translation selection and other app settings
• Voice Recordings: Audio recordings of your prayers (stored locally on device)

Analytics Data

To improve the app experience and understand how features are used, we collect anonymous analytics data through PostHog, including:

• Feature Usage Events: Which features you use (e.g., starting a devotional, viewing a chapter, sending a chat message) — we track event names and metadata such as entry type, Bible translation, and step completed, but never the content of your entries
• Device Information: Device model, operating system version, app version, and build number (collected automatically by the analytics SDK)
• Subscription Status: Whether you are a free or Plus user
• Rate Limiting Counts: Anonymous usage counts to enforce usage limits on certain features (for example, Ask Sow messages, which reset on a weekly or daily cycle depending on your tier)

We do not track or log the content of your devotional entries, prayers, personal reflections, or chat messages on our analytics servers. We do not track you across other apps or websites. Analytics data is not used for advertising.

Information collected by Sow is used to:

• Authenticate your identity and secure your account
• Provide the devotional experience and track your spiritual growth
• Sync your data across your Apple devices via Apple CloudKit
• Maintain your app preferences and reading history
• Understand feature usage to improve the app experience
• Enforce usage limits to ensure service availability for all users

Your data is stored:

• Locally: On your device using Core Data
• Cloud Sync: Via Apple CloudKit to sync across your devices signed in with the same Apple ID (available to all users)
• Authentication Tokens: Securely stored in your device's Keychain
• Scripture Content: Provided by API.Bible in accordance with their Fair Use Management System (FUMS)

Some Sow features generate personalized results from your own words. These features are powered by OpenAI, a third-party service that processes text securely on our behalf. They are off by default: the first time you use one, Sow explains what will be shared and asks for your permission, and you can turn them off at any time in Profile → Privacy.

• Ask Sow (chat): Your chat messages and, when you're reading a passage, the surrounding Scripture context are sent to OpenAI to generate responses
• Journal Insights: The text of your recent reflections and prayers is sent to OpenAI to identify themes, prayer threads, and growth patterns, which are shown back to you as insight cards
• Page Scanning: Photos of handwritten journal pages you choose to scan are sent to OpenAI to be converted into text

What we promise about this processing:

• Never used for training: Content sent through these features is not used to train OpenAI's models (per OpenAI's API data usage policy)
• No identity attached: Requests are sent through our secure backend without your name, email, or account details
• No persistent storage: Your entries and chat conversations are not saved on our servers; results are returned to your device
• Your choice, always: Declining or disabling these features never affects journaling, Scripture reading, or any other part of the app

Ask Sow is designed to provide Scripture-based guidance and should not be considered a substitute for professional counseling or pastoral care.

Sow offers optional voice prayer recording:

• Microphone Access: Required only if you choose to record voice prayers
• Audio Storage: Voice recordings are stored locally on your device and synced via CloudKit
• Transcription: Voice prayers are transcribed on-device using Apple's speech recognition frameworks — the audio never leaves your device for transcription

You can deny microphone access and still use all other app features.

Sow lets you read a Bible plan together with others in a group. Groups are a shared experience, so — unlike your personal journal entries, which stay on your device and in your private iCloud — certain group data is stored on our servers (Cloudflare) to make the shared experience work, and some of it is visible to the other members of your group:

• Group membership and your display name: so members can see who is in the group
• Daily reading progress: whether you have completed each day's reading, shown to the group as a shared mosaic
• Mosaic photo: if you create a group and upload your own photo for its mosaic, that image is stored on our servers and shown to the group
• Reflections you choose to share: shared only when you explicitly choose to share them with your group; otherwise your reflections stay private

You can leave a group at any time. Joining or creating a group is optional — if you never use groups, none of this data is created.

We do not sell or transfer your personal information to third parties for marketing or advertising purposes. Your devotional entries and personal data remain private to you.

Data is shared with third-party services only as necessary to provide app functionality, as described below.

Sow uses the following third-party services:

• Apple CloudKit: For syncing data across devices (governed by Apple's Privacy Policy)
• Apple Sign In: For authentication (governed by Apple's Privacy Policy)
• Google Sign In: For authentication (governed by Google's Privacy Policy)
• API.Bible: For scripture content (governed by their privacy policy and FUMS compliance)
• OpenAI: For Ask Sow chat responses, journal insights, and page-scan transcription — only with your permission, as described in "Insights, Ask Sow, and Page Scanning" above (governed by OpenAI's Privacy Policy)
• PostHog: For anonymous product analytics and feature usage tracking (governed by PostHog's Privacy Policy). Data is hosted in the United States.
• Cloudflare: Our backend API runs on Cloudflare Workers, and group data (membership, reading progress, and mosaic photos) is stored on Cloudflare (governed by Cloudflare's Privacy Policy)
• RevenueCat: Processes your subscription and purchase status to manage Sow Plus access and related analytics; it does not receive your devotional content (governed by RevenueCat's Privacy Policy)
• Firebase App Check (Google): Confirms that API requests come from a genuine, unmodified copy of the Sow app to prevent abuse; it does not access your content (governed by Google's Firebase Privacy Policy)

Your data security is protected by:

• Apple's CloudKit encryption and security measures
• Secure token storage in iOS Keychain
• Local device security (Face ID, Touch ID, device passcode)
• HTTPS encryption for all network communications
• JWT-based authentication for all API requests

Your data is retained as follows:

• Devotional Content: Stored on your device until you delete it or remove the app. iCloud data persists until deleted through iCloud settings.
• Authentication Sessions: Active for 90 days, refreshable with app use
• Rate Limiting Counts: Reset on a weekly or daily cycle depending on the feature and your tier
• Analytics Data: Anonymous usage events are retained by PostHog according to their data retention policies. If you opt out of analytics, no further data is collected.

You have the right to:

• Access your data through the app's Journal tab
• Delete individual entries within the app, or delete all local data by uninstalling the app
• Manage or delete iCloud data through your Apple ID > iCloud settings
• Turn "Insights & Ask Sow" on or off anytime in the app's Profile → Privacy settings — when off, none of your content is sent to OpenAI
• Opt out of analytics by toggling off "Help Improve Sow" in the app's Profile settings — this immediately stops all analytics collection
• Revoke app access through your Apple ID or Google account settings
• Deny microphone permissions while still using other app features

To request complete account deletion, including any server-side session data, contact us at hello@trysow.app.

Sow does not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third parties for their marketing or advertising purposes. We do not participate in cross-app or cross-site tracking. We do not respond to Do Not Track browser signals, as our analytics are limited to in-app usage and do not track users across other apps or websites.

Sow does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. The app is designed for general audiences interested in Bible study and devotional practices. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us.

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated revision date. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.