Privacy policy

Last updated September 13, 2026

This is what OurFather collects, why, and what you control. We built the app to hold as little about you as possible.

What we store

An anonymous account id. Created on your phone the first time you tap into the app. No email or phone number is required.
Your display name. Generated for you, changeable any time. It is shown next to what you post and pray for, and on the share pages described below.
Prayers, notes, updates, and confessions you write, and the record of which prayers you prayed for.
Voice recordings you choose to send. They are stored so the one person you prayed for can play them.
Group memberships and the invite codes for groups you create.
The churches you join, up to three, if you join them from the Church tab, until you leave them.
If you sign in with Apple or Google: the identifier that service gives us, which is how you sign back in to the same account on a new phone. Firebase Authentication, which runs sign-in for us, also keeps any name or email address Apple or Google shares with it; the app does not use or show them. We do not receive your password.
If you turn on notifications: a device token used only to send them.
Crash reports and usage events (for example that the pray screen was opened), so we can fix problems. They are linked to your account's id and to an identifier for the app on your phone, never to an advertising identifier, and they contain no prayers, notes, or names. They are not removed when you delete your account.
Moderation records. When something is reported: how many times, whether it was hidden, and any strikes or ban on the account that wrote it. They contain no prayer text or recordings. Some of them stay after an account is deleted; see "What stays after you delete your account" below.

What we do not do

We do not sell your data or share it with advertisers.
We do not read your prayers unless they are reported.
We do not put prayers from groups or churches, notes, recordings, or confessions on our website or in link previews. Confessions are visible only inside their group.
We do not use your microphone except while you are recording a prayer, and nothing is sent until you have listened to it and tapped Send.
We do not store your location. It is used to list churches near you and to check that a church is close enough to join, and then it is gone.

Your location

The app asks for your location only when you look for churches near you, and only while you are looking. When you look for a church, OurFather sends your approximate position (rounded to about 100 m) to our server to list churches near you. It is used for that request only and is never stored or logged. Your phone does the rounding before anything leaves it, and we never share your position with anyone. You can say no and still search for a church by its name or town. Joining a church needs your location, because a church has to be within 50 miles of you to join; without it, the app asks you to turn location on. You can join up to three churches.

Church rooms

Anyone in the app can join a church, so a church room is open, not private. Prayers you post in a church are visible to everyone in the app who joins that church, with your display name. A church's page shows how many people have joined, never who. You can leave a church at any time from its info screen; prayers you posted there stay with the people praying there unless you delete them first. Any prayer in a church can be reported; reporting hides it for you and blocks the person who wrote it.

A group started inside a church can be found by everyone who has joined that church. They see its name and how many people are in it; if the group is open, they can also see who is in it and join it. If its creator approves who joins, it is listed without its invite code and nobody joins without the creator's approval, but anyone who already has its code can see who is in it. Its prayers are visible only to the people in it.

Church details from Overture Maps Foundation, CDLA-Permissive-2.0. The directory gives us a church's name and address and nothing about you.

Who can see what

Prayers you share to the global feed can be shown to any signed-in person in the app, with your display name, and on the share pages described below. Notes and recordings go only to the author of the prayer you prayed for. Group prayers and confessions are visible only to members of that group, with one exception: anyone holding the invite code of a group that is outside a church and whose creator does not approve who joins can read its most recent prayer. Anyone who has a group's invite code can also see who is in it, including someone who was removed from it. Prayers in a church are visible to everyone in the app who joins that church. Confessions never show a name in the app.

When a prayer from the global feed is shared, its link opens a page on ourfather.org that anyone with the link can see without signing in: the prayer, its answer if there is one, and the author's display name. Your personal invite link (ourfather.org/with/ followed by your name) shows your display name and your most recent open prayer from the global feed. An invitation to a group (ourfather.org/join/ followed by the group's code) shows anyone who opens it the group's name, the name of its church if it has one, and, when a member shared it, that member's display name. Anyone who has one of these links can pass it on, and messaging apps show a preview of it. These pages ask search engines not to list them. Prayers in groups and churches, notes, recordings, and confessions never appear on a share page. A prayer that is hidden or deleted stops appearing on its page within about ten minutes, but a messaging app may keep a preview it already made.

Where it lives and how it is protected

Data is stored with Google Firebase in the United States and protected by security rules that limit every read and write to the people it belongs to. Traffic to and from your phone is encrypted. Protected server features, such as church search, also require an app attestation check that confirms a request came from the real OurFather app.

Our website loads its typeface from Google Fonts, so Google receives your IP address when you open a page on ourfather.org. The website sets no cookies.

Your controls

Change your name from your profile.
Block someone by reporting a prayer, note, or recording of theirs; you will not see their posts or get notifications from them again. Reporting a confession hides it for you and blocks nobody, because confessions carry no name.
Leave a church from its info screen.
Turn location off for OurFather in your phone's Settings at any time. Church search keeps working by name.
Delete any recording you sent from your "You prayed" list.
Delete your account from Settings while you are online. This permanently removes your account, prayers, notes, updates, recordings, confessions, and group memberships. It cannot be undone. Our database keeps a rolling seven-day recovery history so mistakes can be repaired; deleted data leaves that history within seven days.
What stays after you delete your account. None of it contains anything you wrote or your display name. Some records keep your account's id, a random code:
- If people joined through your invitation, their records, and the records of the people they invited, keep your id as part of that chain of invitations, so whoever invited you is still credited for their prayers. Anyone signed in to the app can read the id on their accounts.
- People who blocked you keep your id in their own block list, which only they can see. If you reported someone, the moderation record of that account can list your id among the people who reported it.
- A record that your account was deleted, with your id and when, and a flag on your account's id marking it as deleted, stay permanently, so a deleted account can never post again.
- If you reported something, the record of that report keeps your id and which item you reported permanently, so the same report is never counted twice. The words of your report are deleted with your account.
- If something you wrote was reported, or your account had strikes or a ban, the records of those reports and of any action taken, with your id and without what you wrote, are kept for 90 days after your account is deleted and then removed.
- For two days, markers with your id stop your prayers and your invitation being counted a second time, and counters that limit how many notifications you could send to someone keep your id in that person's records. The records that keep prayer counts accurate hold no id.
- Our server logs, which can include your id, are kept for 30 days, and crash reports and usage events are kept as described above.

Children

OurFather is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will remove it.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a way that affects you, we will say so in the app before the change takes effect.

Questions about any of this? Write to support@ourfather.org.