Privacy Policy

COVR is an iPhone app for praying at places in your neighbourhood. It is built to collect as little as possible. This policy explains what COVR collects, why, and what your choices are. COVR is operated by Matt Ayers in New Zealand (“we”).

What we collect and store

• Your account. You sign in with Apple. We store an account ID and the email address Apple provides. If you chose “Hide My Email”, that is a private relay address. We do not ask for your name.
• Prayer activity. When you pray at a beacon or prayer walk, we store your account ID, the place, date and time, whether you typed or spoke, the processing result, and any broad themes extracted from the prayer. This provides your private totals, applies daily limits, and changes the place’s light on the map. Because a prayer is tied to a place, the record also indicates approximately where you were when you prayed. If you pray at a place someone else created, its creator may be told how many people have prayed at their places since they last checked, but never who. They can check at most twice a day.
• Places and prayer walks you create. If you create a beacon, we store its name, description and precise map coordinate. If you record and save a prayer walk, we store its name, description and precise route. New places start as Only me, visible only to you. If you choose Everyone, the place, its details and its location are shown to other signed-in COVR users. We also retain the account ID of the creator so you can manage your places.
• Saved places and sparks. We store the beacons and prayer walks you save, and the colour of any spark you leave after praying. Saved places are private to your account. Sparks are shown without your identity.
• Hidden creators. If you hide the places of someone who created a beacon or walk, we store that choice so their places stay off your map. It is private to your account: the creator is not told, and you are not shown who they are.
• Reports. If you report a beacon or walk, we store the reason and any note you provide. The report is linked to your account internally to prevent duplicate reports and abuse, but administrators reviewing reports are not shown who submitted them.
• Broad community themes. Each prayer can be tagged with a few broad themes, such as “health” or “family”. Themes are shown at a place only after at least two other people have prayed there. Other users never see who prayed or which themes came from you.
• Service and security records. Our service provider Supabase records authentication and service events, which may include your account ID, IP address, device or browser information, timestamps and request metadata. These records are used for authentication, security, abuse prevention and reliability—not advertising or tracking.

What we process without storing in COVR

• Your prayer text. We send what you type or dictate to our server and to Anthropic to check it for abuse and extract broad themes. We do not save the prayer text in COVR’s database, application logs, analytics or device drafts. Anthropic may retain it temporarily as described below.
• Your voice. Spoken prayers are transcribed on your iPhone using Apple’s on-device speech recognition. COVR does not create, upload or save an audio recording.
• Your prayer check-in location. When you submit a prayer, COVR sends a fresh precise location fix to our server to confirm that you are close enough to the beacon or walk. We use it for that request and do not save the fix in COVR’s database or application logs. This is separate from a beacon coordinate or prayer-walk route that you intentionally save.

COVR uses your location while the app is open to show nearby places, guide you there, verify an on-site prayer, gather map sparks and record a prayer walk. While you record a prayer walk, COVR keeps recording with the screen locked, and iOS shows the location indicator meanwhile; it never asks for “Always” location access. A recorded walk remains on your device until you choose to save it; once saved, its route is stored, and shown on the map to you alone or to everyone, as you choose. COVR does not use location for advertising or to follow your movements for analytics.

Service providers

• Supabase hosts our database, authentication, realtime updates and server functions. Supabase processes the account, content, activity, location and service data described above on our behalf.
• Anthropic (Claude) receives your prayer text to screen it for abuse and extract broad themes. When you share a place with everyone, it also receives that place’s name and description to screen them for objectionable content. We send only a one-way hash of your COVR account ID as user metadata. Anthropic does not use commercial API inputs or outputs to train its models unless the customer explicitly opts in. Under its standard API terms, Anthropic may retain inputs and outputs for up to 30 days, and may retain them longer where required for safety enforcement or by law.
• Apple provides Sign in with Apple, Apple Maps, walking directions and on-device speech recognition. Apple handles information used by those services under its own privacy terms.

We do not sell your data, show ads, use third-party advertising, or use third-party analytics or cross-app tracking.

How long we keep data

We keep account data and account-linked activity while your account is active, unless you remove particular content sooner. Beacons and walks you create remain until you delete them, they are removed for safety, or you delete your account. Supabase keeps operational and authentication logs according to its service configuration and retention periods. Anthropic’s standard API retention is described above. We may retain limited records longer if required by law or necessary to investigate abuse or protect the service.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time in the app under Profile → Delete account. For a standard user account, this deletes your account, personal beacons and prayer walks, prayer records and their theme links, light credits, sparks, saved places, hidden creators and reports. COVR also asks Apple to revoke its Sign in with Apple authorization. An administrator-created shared place may remain after that administrator’s account is deleted, but its link to the deleted account is removed. Data already held in provider security or operational logs may remain until the applicable retention period expires.

Security

We use technical and organisational measures designed to protect COVR data, including encrypted network connections, account authentication and database access controls. No system can guarantee absolute security.

Children

COVR is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them.

Your rights

You can ask to access, correct or delete the information we hold about you, including under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020. Email us. You can also remove saved places, edit or delete places you created, and delete your account from within the app.

Changes

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top of this page. If the change is significant, we will also tell you in the app.