The short version
- Your habits, notes and settings stay on your phone. We don't have a server that stores them, and we can't see them.
- We never track your prayers. The app reminds you of prayer times. It doesn't record whether you prayed.
- Your location is used on your phone only, to calculate prayer times and the Qibla direction. It is not sent to us.
- No ads. No analytics tools. We don't sell data, and we don't share it for advertising.
- If you buy a subscription, Google Play handles the payment. Our subscription service, RevenueCat, receives the purchase record so the app knows what you've unlocked.
- If you join a family circle (optional), only what you choose to share leaves your phone: your name in the circle, the habits you pick, and which of them you reached this week. Worship habits show only "reached", never an amount. Prayers are never shared.
- Backups are under your control: a file you save where you want, or (later, optional) your own Google Drive.
Controller: Esam Shahlol, trading as "Rafaah Studio", Germany.
1. Data that stays on your phone
The app stores the following only on your phone, in the app's private storage:
- Your habits, their three amounts, and what you logged each day.
- Your notes («خواطر»), your intention for the day and your "big reason".
- Your settings: language, theme, form of address and nickname (if you give one), bedtime, reminder times.
- Your prayer settings: city or coordinates, calculation method, madhab for Asr, and time adjustments.
We don't receive any of this. Prayer times are calculated on your phone when needed and are not stored. Android's automatic cloud backup is switched off for this app, so this data isn't copied to Google's servers unless you choose one of the backup options in section 6.
Uninstalling the app, or using Settings → Delete all data, deletes this data from your phone.
2. Location
- If you allow location access, the app reads your phone's location to calculate prayer times and the Qibla direction. This happens on your phone. The location is not sent to us or to anyone else.
- You can choose your city by hand instead, from a list built into the app. The app works fully without location access.
3. Notifications
Prayer and habit reminders are scheduled on your phone by the app. They don't pass through a server of ours. You can turn each reminder off in the app or in Android's settings.
4. Data we or our providers do receive
| What | When | Who receives it | Why | Legal basis (GDPR) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purchase records: an anonymous app user ID created by the app, the product bought, price and currency, store country, purchase and renewal dates, and the Google Play purchase token | Only if you start a trial or buy a subscription | Google Play (payment) and RevenueCat, Inc. (our subscription service, acting on our behalf) | To give you what you paid for, restore it on a new phone, and handle renewals and refunds | Art. 6(1)(b), performance of a contract |
| Crash data in Android vitals: crash and "app not responding" reports, device model, Android version | If you agreed in your phone's settings to share usage and diagnostics with Google | Google, under Google's privacy policy. We see only reports in the Play Console, without your name or contact details | To find and fix crashes | Art. 6(1)(f), legitimate interest in a working app |
| Family circle data (section 4a) | Only if you join a circle | Supabase (acting on our behalf), in the EU | To run the circle | Art. 9(2)(a) and 6(1)(a), your explicit consent |
| Emails you send us | If you write to us | Us, and our email provider Hostinger | To answer you | Art. 6(1)(f) or (b) |
What we never send anywhere, including to the providers above: your habits (except what you choose to share in a family circle), notes, intention, big reason, nickname, prayer settings, calculation method, madhab, city or location.
Google Play processes your payment details (card, carrier billing). We never see them.
4a. Family circle (optional)
The family circle lets up to five people, each on their own phone, see the habits the others choose to share this week, tick shared family habits, and send each other «شجّعه» (encouragement) or «ادعُ له» (a note that someone made dua for them). Nothing is shared unless you join a circle, and then only what you choose.
What we store when you join
- a random account ID created when you open the circle (no email, no phone number, no password);
- the name you use in the circle, and a record that you gave consent (which wording you saw and when);
- confirmation that you are 16 or older (we don't ask for your birthdate);
- for each habit you choose to share, the label you give it, and the days this week you reached it. For habits that aren't worship or avoid habits, we also store which amount you reached;
- the circle's name, its family habits and the days they were ticked;
- the nudges you send and receive.
What we never store: your prayers, the amounts of worship habits, your other habits, your reasons and notes, reminder times, location, prayer settings, and who ticked a family habit.
Who sees it: only the members of your circle. Nobody outside the circle can read it. The circle's owner sees the invite code and can remove a member.
Why and on what legal basis: to run the circle you asked to join. Because worship habits can reveal your religious beliefs, we ask for your explicit consent when you join (Art. 9(2)(a) and Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). You can withdraw it at any time by leaving the circle or deleting your circle account; this doesn't affect what happened before.
Where: on servers of Supabase (our processor, under a data processing agreement) in the EU (Frankfurt, Germany).
How long: days reached, ticks and nudges are deleted after 8 days. Your membership and shared habits stay until you stop sharing them, leave the circle, or delete your circle account. Leaving deletes your shared habits, their days and your nudges. Deleting your circle account also deletes the account itself. Accounts that never joined a circle, or left one, are deleted after 30 days.
How to delete: in the app, Settings → Family circle → "Delete my circle account". Settings → Your data and privacy → Delete all data also deletes your circle account. Without the app: see the account deletion page. Uninstalling the app does not delete your circle account; delete it first.
5. What we don't do
- No advertising, and no advertising ID.
- No analytics or tracking tools in the app.
- No account or sign-in is needed to use the app. The optional family circle creates an anonymous account (section 4a).
- We don't sell personal data or share it for advertising.
- We don't record or count your prayers or other worship. In a family circle, a worship habit you share shows only whether you reached it that day.
- We don't make automated decisions about you.
6. Backups
- Backup file (free). You can export an encrypted backup file and save it wherever you choose: your phone, a computer, or your own cloud storage. The file is encrypted with a passphrase that only you know. We don't receive the file or the passphrase. If you lose the passphrase, we can't recover the file.
- Automatic Google Drive backup (premium, coming later). If you turn it on, you sign in with your Google account, and the app saves the encrypted backup in a private app folder in your own Google Drive on the schedule you choose. The file is stored by Google under your Google account terms. We don't have access to your Drive. You can turn this off at any time and delete the folder from your Drive.
7. Who processes data for us
| Provider | Role | Location / transfer safeguard |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ireland Ltd / Google LLC | App distribution, payments, Android vitals; Drive (if you use Drive backup) | Under Google's terms and privacy policy |
| RevenueCat, Inc. | Subscription management | USA, under the EU Standard Contractual Clauses in RevenueCat's data processing agreement |
| Supabase, Inc. | Family circle hosting and anonymous sign-in | EU (Frankfurt), under a data processing agreement |
| Hostinger International Ltd. | Hosting this website, and email | EU |
8. How long we keep data
- Data on your phone: until you delete it or uninstall the app.
- Purchase records at RevenueCat: as long as needed to provide your subscription and meet tax and accounting duties (in Germany usually up to 10 years for accounting records).
- Family circle: as in section 4a. Supabase keeps sign-in logs (including IP address) for a limited time under its settings.
- Web server logs: a short time under the host's settings, then deleted.
- Emails: as long as needed to answer, then deleted unless the law requires us to keep them.
9. Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to:
- access the personal data we hold about you;
- have it corrected or deleted;
- restrict or object to its use;
- receive it in a portable format;
- withdraw consent at any time (for example, for the family circle);
- complain to a data protection authority in your own country.
Most of your data never reaches us, so the fastest way to see, export or delete it is in the app: Settings → Backup and Settings → Delete all data. For the family circle, you can see what you share in the app, and delete it there at any time. For purchase records, write to support@esamshahlol.com with the support ID shown in Settings → About. We answer within one month.
10. Children and security
The app is not directed at children under 16, and we don't knowingly collect data from them. The family circle is open only to people who confirm they are 16 or older.
Data on your phone is protected by Android's app storage encryption. Backup files are encrypted with your passphrase. Data sent to our providers travels over encrypted connections (TLS).
11. This website
The Rafaah pages on this website use no cookies and no analytics, and load nothing from other companies: fonts and images are served from the same server. Like any web server, the host logs IP addresses and request times for security and operation (Art. 6(1)(f)). The blog and newsletter on this domain have their own privacy policy.
12. Changes and contact
If we change this policy, we update the date at the top and, for important changes, tell you in the app before they take effect.