Privacy Policy

Who this app is for

Bible to Unlock is meant to be set up and controlled by a parent or guardian. Children use the reading screen, but all settings are behind a parent PIN. If you are a child, please ask a parent before using this app.

What the app handles, and where it stays

1. Voice recordings (on the phone)

While your child reads a passage aloud, the app uses the microphone to hear the reading. It saves a recording of each reading on the phone, so a parent can play it back in the History screen.

• Recordings are deleted automatically after 60 days by default. A parent can change this to anywhere from 7 to 365 days in Settings.
• A parent can delete them at once with Settings → Erase everything on this phone, or by deleting the app.
• We never receive these recordings.

2. Voice profile (“voiceprint”) (on the phone)

If a parent turns on the voice check, the app builds a voice profile for the child. This is a set of numbers that describes how the child's voice sounds, made from about a minute of reading. The app uses it to tell whether the person reading is the child. It's made and stored only on the phone, with an open-source speaker model that runs on the device. It's never sent to us or anyone else, and it isn't used for anything except this check. It's deleted when a parent retrains, erases the phone's data, or deletes the app.

Some laws (for example in Illinois, Texas, and Washington) treat voiceprints as biometric data. By turning on the voice check, the parent agrees, for themselves and their child, to the voice profile being created and kept on the phone for this purpose.

3. Speech recognition (Apple)

To check that the passage was read, the app uses Apple's speech recognition. On iPhones that support it, this runs on the phone. On phones that don't, or if a parent turns off “Prefer on-device speech recognition”, Apple processes the audio on its servers to turn it into text. That's handled by Apple under Apple's Privacy Policy, not by us. We don't receive the audio or the text.

4. Reading history and settings (on the phone)

The app keeps the child's first name, the reading plan, reading results (passage, date, how much was heard, whether it passed), the apps chosen to block, the lock time, and the parent PIN (stored only as a salted hash), all on the phone.

5. Screen Time (on the phone)

The app uses Apple's Screen Time (Family Controls) to block and unblock apps. Apple doesn't tell the app which specific apps your child uses or for how long. The app only gets anonymous tokens for the apps a parent picked. This data never leaves the phone.

6. Location (optional, on the phone)

Only if a parent turns on “Sundays at church”, the app asks for location access, including “Always”. It needs Always so iOS can notify the app when the phone arrives at or leaves church, even when the app is closed. The app pauses the chosen apps while the phone is at church on Sundays.

• The only place saved is the church's location, on the phone. The app doesn't keep a history of where the phone has been, and it doesn't track the phone continuously.
• If a parent types in the church's address, it's sent to Apple's map service to find it on the map.
• Location is never sent to us.
• A parent can turn this off any time, or deny location access, and the rest of the app keeps working.

7. Family view (optional, Apple iCloud, end-to-end encrypted)

If a parent connects a child's phone to the parent's phone, the child's phone sends a short status to the parent's phone through Apple's iCloud (CloudKit). The status includes the child's first name, whether the apps are locked, the latest reading and results, the streak, any reading in progress, and readings flagged for a parent. The parent's phone can send back assigned readings and how long apps stay open.

• These messages are encrypted on the phone before they're sent. Only the family's own phones hold the keys, so neither we nor Apple can read them. A child's phone can't read other children's status.
• Never sent: recordings, transcripts, voice profiles, or location.
• The encrypted records are stored in our app's iCloud container and are replaced as new updates arrive. They stay there until the phone is disconnected from Family. “Erase everything on this phone” resets the phone's reading data but keeps it connected to Family, so disconnect first if you also want its iCloud records removed.

8. Bible text (Crossway's ESV API)

To check the reading, the app downloads the text of the day's chapter from Crossway's ESV API (api.esv.org). The request contains only the passage reference (for example “John 3”) and the app's own key. No personal information is included. Like any internet request, it reveals the phone's IP address to Crossway. The app keeps at most a few chapters (under 500 verses) on the phone at a time. Crossway's privacy practices are described at esv.org.

9. Notifications (on the phone)

Reminders and “apps are back” messages are scheduled on the phone. We don't use a push notification service.

What we don't do

• No ads, ad networks, or analytics/crash-reporting SDKs.
• No tracking across other companies' apps or websites, and no data brokers.
• No selling or sharing of personal information.
• No accounts, logins, or email addresses collected in the app.

Children's privacy (COPPA)

Bible to Unlock is directed to parents, who set it up on their child's device. We don't collect personal information from children: the recordings, voice profile, name, and reading history stay on the family's devices, or are end-to-end encrypted in the family's sync, where we can't read them. Because we don't hold children's data, we have nothing to disclose or sell. A parent can review the child's data in the app (History, Voices, Settings) and delete it at any time. If you think we've somehow received information about your child, email us and we'll delete it.

Backups

Data stored on the phone, including recordings and the voice profile, may be included in the phone's own iCloud or computer backup, like other app data, depending on the family's settings. Those backups are controlled by you and Apple, not by us.

How to delete your data

• Everything on one phone: in the parent area, go to Settings → Erase everything on this phone. Deleting the app also removes its data from the phone.
• Recordings only: shorten “Keep recordings” in Settings, or delete individual readings in History.
• Location: turn off “Sundays at church”, or switch off location access for the app in iOS Settings.
• Family view: on the child's phone, tap “Disconnect from the parent phone”, then “Disconnect”. That deletes the phone's encrypted status from iCloud. On the parent phone, tap “Stop using this as the parent phone”, then “Stop and remove the code”. That removes its family code from iCloud. “Erase everything” doesn't disconnect Family, so do this first if you want the iCloud records gone too. Deleting the app without disconnecting leaves those records in iCloud, where they stay encrypted and no one, including us, can read them. Email us if you'd like help removing them.

Security

Data on the phone is protected by iOS's built-in encryption. The parent area is protected by a PIN, and family sync is end-to-end encrypted. No method is perfect, but we've designed the app so your family's data doesn't come to us in the first place.

Your rights (including California)

Because we don't collect or hold personal information about you or your child, there's usually nothing for us to access, correct, or delete on our side. You control all of it in the app. You can still contact us with any privacy request or question, and we'll reply within 30 days.

Changes

If we change how the app handles data, we'll update this page and change the effective date. If we start sending any personal data off the phone in a new way, we'll ask first in the app.

Contact

Serban Marketing Inc, Rocklin, CA, USA
marius@serbanmarketing.com