Bible BisonPrivacy Policy
Last updated 13 September 2026. Applies to the Bible Bison iOS app and biblebison.com.
The short version. Bible Bison has no advertising business, no analytics SDK and no trackers. Nothing about you is sold or shared for advertising, ever. What you write in the journal is stored on Bible Bison's own server and sent to OpenAI so that a reply can be written back to you. It is never shown to another user. You can delete your account, and everything attached to it, from inside the app in two taps.
1. Who runs this
Bible Bison is operated by the developer of the Bible Bison app ("we", "us"). You can reach us at [email protected]. We are the data controller for the information described below.
2. What is collected, and why
We collect only what the app needs to work. There is no advertising or profiling use of any of it.
| What | Why | When |
|---|---|---|
| Your Apple account identifier, and the name and email address Apple chooses to share | To create and sign you into your account | If you sign in with Apple |
| Your phone number | To send a one-time code and sign you in | If you sign in by phone |
| A display name you type | Shown to you, and to a friend you have accepted | Optional |
| A profile photo | Shown on your own page | Optional. Stored on your device only |
| Journal entries, "why I fight" statements and letters you write | To store them for you and to write a pastoral reply | When you write one |
| Photos of handwritten journal pages | To transcribe them into your journal | If you add one |
| Devotional sessions, reading records, scripture memorisation results | To keep your counters and schedule your review | As you use the app |
| Urge-flow events, thought-capture events, relapse records and nightly check-ins | To keep your own record and to shape what is written to you | As you use those features |
| Your settings: waking and sleeping hours, time zone, reading plan, chosen pastor | To time notifications and pick the right voice | As you set them |
| An ally's name and phone number, if you enter one | Kept so the app can offer a one-tap message to them. We never contact them | Optional |
| A push notification token from Apple | To deliver notifications to your device | If you allow notifications |
| Basic server logs | To keep the service running and to investigate faults | Every request |
We do not collect your contacts, your location, your advertising identifier, your health records, your browsing history outside the app, or anything from other apps. There is no analytics or attribution SDK in the app.
3. What never leaves your phone
- Your profile photo.
- Bible highlights, notes and bookmarks you make in the reader.
- Anything you write while the app has no network connection and you have not signed in.
- Face ID or passcode data. Apple handles that; the app only ever learns whether the check passed.
- Microphone audio used for dictation and verse recitation. Speech recognition happens on your device; only the resulting text is kept, and only where you save it.
4. Who else processes it
We use a small number of service providers. Each receives only what it needs to do its job, and none of them is permitted to use your data for their own purposes.
| Provider | What it receives | What for |
|---|---|---|
| Railway | Everything stored on our server | Hosting the server and the database |
| OpenAI | The text of journal entries, check-ins and records used to write a reply, plus photos of journal pages for transcription | Generating pastoral text and speech, and transcribing your handwriting |
| Twilio | Your phone number | Sending the one-time sign-in code |
| Apple | A device token and the notification content | Delivering push notifications |
| Crossway | The Bible passage being requested. No personal information | Supplying the ESV text |
| Cloudflare | Network-level request data for biblebison.com | Serving the website |
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. We have never done either, and the app contains no mechanism that would make it possible.
5. How your writing is used by AI
The letters, journal replies and notifications you receive are generated by a large language model run by OpenAI. To write something that is actually about your week, the server sends relevant recent entries and records to OpenAI as part of the request.
- This is done under OpenAI's API terms, under which your content is not used to train their models.
- It is sent under our account, not one linked to your identity.
- Generated text is a pastoral reflection written by software. It is not counselling, diagnosis or treatment, and it can be wrong.
6. What friends can see
If you send someone an invite link and they accept, they can see exactly four numbers about you: days in the Word, victories recorded, verses kept, and your reading streak. All four only ever go up.
They cannot see anything else. Not a line of your journal, not a relapse, not a date, not your covenant, not your settings. The day counter is deliberately excluded, because a number that resets would disclose a fall that you did not choose to disclose. You can remove or block a friend at any time.
7. How long it is kept
- Your content is kept until you delete it or delete your account.
- Sign-in codes expire within minutes.
- Sessions expire after ninety days, and signing out on a device revokes that device's session immediately.
- Server logs are kept for a short operational period and then discarded.
- Cached Bible text is not personal information and is kept as a shared cache.
8. Deleting your account
In the app: You → your profile → Delete account. It takes two taps and needs no email to us and no conversation with anyone.
Deleting your account removes your journal, your records, your settings, your friendships, your public counters, your device tokens and your sign-in identifiers from our server. A minimal, non-identifying marker is retained so that a deleted account cannot be silently re-created and re-linked to the data of a previous owner. Anything stored only on your phone is removed when you delete the app.
If you cannot reach the app, email [email protected] and we will delete it for you.
9. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export, restrict or delete your personal information, to object to processing, and to complain to a supervisory authority. Residents of the EEA and UK have these rights under the GDPR; residents of California have rights under the CCPA/CPRA, including the right not to be discriminated against for exercising them.
We process your information to perform the contract you enter by using the app, and on the basis of your consent where you have given it (for example, notifications). You can withdraw consent at any time.
To exercise any right, email [email protected]. We will respond within the period the law requires.
10. Children
Bible Bison deals frankly with adult subject matter and is not intended for children. It is rated accordingly on the App Store, and you must be old enough for that rating in your country to use it. We do not knowingly collect information from children under that age. If you believe a child has created an account, email us and we will delete it.
11. Where data is stored
Our server and database are hosted in the United States. Our service providers may process data in the United States and elsewhere. If you use the app from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, which may have different data protection laws than your country.
12. Security
All traffic between the app and our server is encrypted in transit with TLS. The database enforces row-level security, so a query made on behalf of one account cannot read another account's rows even if the application layer were wrong. Sign-in tokens are stored in the iOS Keychain. Access to production is limited to the developer.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affecting your information occurs, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.
13. Changes
If this policy changes in a way that materially affects you, we will update the date at the top and give notice in the app before the change takes effect.
14. Contact
[email protected]
Support: biblebison.com/support