Privacy Policy

What stays on your device

The app works out the liturgical calendar, the day’s readings citations, and the order of Mass on your device. Your home parish, saved parishes, journal entries, reminders, and preferences are stored on your device.

Mass reminders are off unless you turn them on. When you do, they arrive 1 hour before Mass unless you choose another time. They are local notifications that your device schedules itself, so nothing about them leaves your device.

If you’re signed in to iCloud with iCloud sync turned on for the app, your data also syncs between your devices through your private iCloud database. That database belongs to your Apple Account, counts against your iCloud storage, and can’t be read by us. Apple stores it under the Apple Privacy Policy. Your journal text is kept in an encrypted iCloud field. If you turn on Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, Apple encrypts that field end to end, so only your own devices can read your journal. The app’s other data, and the journal without Advanced Data Protection, is encrypted in transit and on Apple’s servers. If the same parish is saved twice on two devices, the app merges the copies by itself when they sync. To remove synced data, delete it in the app, or delete the app’s data in your iCloud settings.

Location

Location is used only when you tap “Find nearby”, and only after you grant permission. The app asks for approximate location, not your precise position. It compares that location with the parish list already on your device. The location isn’t stored and isn’t sent to us or anyone else. You can change this any time in your device’s Settings.

You can type a ZIP code or a town instead and never grant location access. The app looks it up in a table of US ZIP codes and towns that is built into the app, so what you type doesn’t leave your device, and it isn’t saved after the search.

Maps in the app come from Apple’s MapKit. When the app shows a map, your device loads the map from Apple, under Apple’s privacy policy, not from us.

Downloads from our website

The app downloads calendar and parish files, such as the Mass times for a diocese, from our website, pewcompanion.com, which is hosted on Cloudflare Pages. These downloads carry no account, device identifier, or location coordinates. Like any web request, though, they reveal your IP address and the name of the file being requested to Cloudflare.

We don’t run analytics on this website, and we have turned off Cloudflare’s optional analytics, logging, and bot-detection features. Cloudflare processes request data to deliver the files and to keep its service secure, and may keep security logs, including IP addresses, under its own privacy policy. This website, including this page, uses no cookies and no tracking scripts.

Report a change

Mass times change, so each parish has a “Report a change” button. It doesn’t send anything by itself. It opens a new email in your own Mail app, addressed to support@pewcompanion.com and filled in with the report. If you send it:

• What’s in it: the parish, the item you’re correcting (for example, “Tuesday 7:00 AM Mass is now 6:30 AM”), and any note you add. You see the whole email, and can change or delete any of it, before you tap Send. If you don’t send it, nothing reaches us.
• Your email address: because it’s an email, it comes with the address and name of the mail account you send it from, as any email does. We use them only to reply about that report, if we need to ask something.
• What’s not in it: your location, a device or advertising identifier, the app’s version or settings, or anything from your journal. The app adds nothing you can’t see in the email.
• How it reaches us: support@pewcompanion.com is a forwarding address. Cloudflare’s Email Routing service forwards the email to the inbox of [DEVELOPER NAME] without keeping a copy of its content. Cloudflare’s dashboard shows a log of delivery details, such as the sender’s address and the time.
• Who sees it: only [DEVELOPER NAME] and anyone helping to review reports. Every report is reviewed by a person. Reports are never published. When a report checks out, we update the parish’s Mass times, and only that corrected fact appears in the app and in our published parish data. Nothing in it identifies you.
• How long we keep it: we delete the email, our replies, and our review notes 90 days after we finish reviewing the report.
• Why we use it: only to keep Mass times accurate and to reply to you about that report. We never use it for marketing and never sell or share it.

Sending a report is your choice each time. Because a report about a parish could suggest something about your faith, sending it is your explicit consent for us to use it as described here. You can withdraw that consent and have your report deleted at any time by writing to support@pewcompanion.com.

The same applies to any other email you send us: we use it only to answer you, and we delete it 90 days after the conversation ends.

Links to other websites

Daily readings open inside the app in a Safari view showing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website, bible.usccb.org. On a Mac, they open in Safari. The Safari view is part of Safari, not of our app: the app can’t see what you do there, and Safari’s own privacy settings apply. The app also links to other sites, such as reflections. We don’t control those sites. Each site has its own privacy policy, such as the USCCB’s.

Children

Pew Companion is suitable for all ages and has no features that collect children’s personal information. Children should ask a parent before emailing us, including with “Report a change”. If we learn that a child under 13 (or under the age set by local law) sent us personal information, we’ll delete it.

Your rights

Because we don’t hold app data about you, most rights requests can be handled on your own device: delete the data in the app or remove the app. If you emailed us, you can ask to see, correct, or delete your email or report, or to withdraw your consent. Write to support@pewcompanion.com from the same address, or tell us which report you mean, so we can find it. We’ll answer within 30 days. If we turn down a request, you can appeal by replying to our answer with “Appeal”. We’ll respond to an appeal within 45 days.

These rights apply wherever you live. In particular:

• EU, EEA, and UK: [DEVELOPER NAME] is the controller for emails and reports. We rely on your consent, and on your explicit consent for anything that could reveal religious belief. You also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office).
• US states (such as California, Virginia, and Colorado): we don’t sell personal information, share it for targeted advertising, or use it for profiling, and we don’t process sensitive data without consent. If you are a Virginia or Colorado resident and we deny your appeal, you can contact your state’s Attorney General.

Changes to this policy

If our practices change, for example if we add a feature that sends new information off your device, we’ll update this policy and the effective date before the change takes effect. We’ll also note significant changes in the app’s release notes. We won’t start collecting new kinds of information without telling you first.

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