Privacy Policy

In brief

• There is no account, no advertising, no analytics and no tracking. The app contains no third-party analytics, advertising or crash-reporting code.
• We do not run a server for the app. We do not receive your location, what you read, your favourites, your notes or your settings.
• A few features ask a mapping or photo service for information directly from your device, as described below.
• If you email us, we receive your message.

Who we are

“We” means the developer of Baha’i Light, named as the seller on the app’s App Store and Google Play pages. You can reach us at bahai.light.95@gmail.com.

What stays on your device

The app keeps the following only on your device, in its own storage. We cannot see it.

• Settings: language, appearance, colour theme, Home background, reading text size and haptic choices.
• Location: the most recent location your device reported (a single point, never a history), the places you choose or save for the Qiblih and for Solar, and your Solar favourites.
• Reading and devotional activity: favourite prayers and writings, saved collections, reading positions, highlights and notes, Feast programs you create (including any names or details you type), and prayer and Solar reminders. The app also records when it was last opened, only to skip the obligatory-prayer reminder on a day you have already opened it.
• Offline maps you import, and on Apple Watch the 95 count and the places you choose or receive from your iPhone.

Favourites, notes, programs and reminders can reveal religious practice. The app never sends them anywhere.

Location

The app asks for your location only while you are using it. It never asks for background location and keeps no record of where you have been.

• The Qiblih direction, sunrise, solar noon and sunset, and the moment each Bahá’í day begins at sunset are calculated on your device.
• You can allow approximate instead of precise location, or not share your location at all and choose a city, an airport code, coordinates or a point on a map.
• Place names: when the Solar screen shows a location, the app asks your device’s geocoding service for the place name in your language and sends it that location’s coordinates. On iPhone this service is Apple’s. On Android it is the geocoding service built into your device, which on most devices is provided by Google. If the request fails, the app uses its own offline list of places.
• Widgets show the Solar location you chose and do not ask for location themselves.
• Apple Watch: if you use the Qiblih app on a paired Apple Watch, your iPhone sends its last known location and your saved Qiblih places to the watch through Apple’s WatchConnectivity service. The watch does not send location anywhere.

You can change location access at any time in your device’s settings.

Services the app contacts

The app sends nothing to us. It contacts these services directly from your device only when you use the features described. Each receives the technical information that any internet request includes, such as your IP address, and handles it under its own privacy policy.

• Maps and place search on iPhone (Apple): the Temple Map, the Qiblih route map and maps for choosing a point use Apple Maps; online place search, which you have to switch on in the place picker, sends your search text to Apple. See Apple’s privacy policy.
• Place search on Android: online place search, which you have to switch on, sends your search text to your device’s geocoding service. Maps on Android are drawn from data stored in the app.
• Temple photographs (Wikimedia): opening the details of a House of Worship loads its photograph from Wikimedia Commons. See the Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy.
• Links you open: websites, videos, directions, phone numbers and email addresses open in your browser or the relevant app, under that service’s terms.

Searches in the offline catalogue and the world map included with the app stay on your device.

Calendar and reminders

Calendar access is optional. You can add an event through your device’s own calendar screen without letting the app read your calendars. If you allow full access, the app shows your existing events beside Bahá’í dates; they are read on your device for display only and are never copied or sent. Events you add are saved in your calendar and synchronised by your calendar account as you have set it up.

Reminders are scheduled on your device. No notification server is involved. On Android, exact reminders need the “Alarms & reminders” permission.

Backups

Your device may include the app’s data in its backups, according to your own settings: iCloud Backup or your computer on iPhone, and your Google account’s backup on Android. Imported world maps, and on Android the databases that come with the app, are left out of backups.

Purchases

Apple and Google sell and deliver the app and handle your payment under their own privacy policies. We never receive your payment details. The stores give us sales reports, which may include limited information such as the country of a purchase.

Feedback and support

Writing to us opens your own email app. Nothing is sent unless you send it. When you do, we receive your email address, your name if your email app includes it, and your message. We use it only to answer you and to improve the app, and we do not share it. Our email is hosted by Google (Gmail), which may store messages outside Switzerland, including in the United States. We delete feedback when it is no longer needed to answer or follow up your message, and sooner if you ask.

This website

This site sets no cookies and uses no analytics, advertising or tracking, and it loads nothing from other websites. It is hosted by Cloudflare, which processes technical information such as IP addresses to deliver and protect the site, under Cloudflare’s privacy policy.

Your choices and rights

Everything the app stores is on your device. You can delete saved places, favourites, collections, highlights, notes, programs, reminders and imported maps in the app, and deleting the app removes its data from that device.

Depending on where you live, data protection law, such as the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection or the EU General Data Protection Regulation, may give you the right to ask what personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, and to object to its use. The only personal information we hold is email you have sent us. Write to us to exercise these rights. You may also complain to a data protection authority; in Switzerland this is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner.

Children

The app has no accounts and collects no personal information from anyone, including children. If you believe a child has emailed us and want the message deleted, write to us.

Changes

If the way the app handles information changes, we will update this policy and its date.