Lantern is a prayer companion app. We take your trust seriously. This policy explains, in plain language, what data Lantern handles and where it goes.
What stays only on your device
The following never leaves your phone unless you share it:
- People you add (names, relationships, notes)
- Intentions you add (titles, categories, notes)
- Your prayer journal entries
- Answered prayers and gratitude notes
- Your daily-prayer completion log and streak
- Your saved devotional readings
- Reminder time preferences
What we send to our prayer service
When you use AI-assisted features (Pray with me, Read aloud, daily prayer audio), Lantern sends specific content to our backend at api.simakk.co.za, which in turn relays it to OpenAI to generate the prayer or audio.
What we send:
- An anonymous device identifier — a random string generated on first launch. It is not tied to your name, email, phone number, or any account. It is used solely to enforce per-device daily rate limits.
- The specific text you've asked the AI to pray over — e.g. the situation you typed, the subject's name and notes, recent journal entries you've authored for that subject.
- The prayer text when you request audio playback.
Daily devotional prayers (the dawn / midday / dusk slots on the Today tab) are pre-generated server-side and contain no personal data. Fetching them sends only your anonymous device ID.
What OpenAI does with the content
OpenAI processes the text to generate a prayer, scripture, reflection, or audio. Lantern uses the OpenAI API with your prayer text tagged at the application level (not user level). OpenAI does not receive any account, name, email, or phone identifier from us. OpenAI's data handling is governed by their API policy at openai.com/policies/api-data-usage-policies.
Voice input
When you tap the microphone in "Pray with me," Lantern uses your device's built-in speech recognition (Android SpeechRecognizer) to transcribe what you say into text. The audio itself does not leave your device. The resulting transcript becomes the situation text — and only that text is then handled per the section above.
Permissions Lantern requests
- Internet — to reach our prayer service.
- Microphone — to enable voice input. Optional. You can type instead.
- Notifications — to deliver your daily prayer reminders. Optional.
- Bluetooth — so voice input works with Bluetooth headsets.
What we do NOT collect
- No accounts, no email or phone number, no password.
- No location data.
- No contacts.
- No advertising IDs.
- No third-party analytics or tracking SDKs.
- No social-media identifiers.
Children
Lantern is intended for users aged 13 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
Your rights and how to delete your data
You can erase every piece of locally stored data at any time: Today tab → Settings → Reset all my data. This wipes your prayers, journal, answered prayers, log, device ID, and cached audio.
To request deletion of any prayer-text data we may have transiently handled on the server, email shingim1@gmail.com. We do not persist your prayer texts beyond the duration needed to generate a response, but if you want a written confirmation we'll provide one.
Data retention
Daily rate-limit counters (anonymous device ID + day + count) are stored on our server for up to 30 days, then expire. Prayer text sent for generation is not persisted on our server beyond the request lifetime. Pre-generated daily devotional content is stored indefinitely on our server but contains no personal data.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as Lantern evolves. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page reflects the current version. Material changes will be communicated through the app.
Contact
Questions, requests, or concerns: shingim1@gmail.com.