Linen
Privacy Policy
Linen is built to be a quiet place. We do not show ads, we do not sell your data, and we do not track you across other apps or websites. There are no accounts: Linen never asks for your email, your phone number or your Apple ID.
Most of what you do in Linen stays on your phone. Three things reach Linen's own server, and only when you use them: questions you ask your Bible study guide, prayers you choose to share, and, if you allow it, the address your phone uses for notifications. This policy explains each one, how long it is kept and how to delete it.
"Linen", "we" and "us" mean the developer of Linen as shown on Linen's App Store page, which publishes the Linen app and runs linenbible.com. You can reach us at linen@decky.cc or through our support page.
On your phone only
These are stored only on your device. We cannot see them.
- Your highlights, saved verses, bookmarks, reading progress, reading plans, settings and reminder times.
- My prayers: the prayers you write down, when you marked them answered and what you wrote about it, and their reminders. A prayer leaves your phone only if you share it (see "Prayers you share").
- Your Bible study guide: your conversation (up to the last 200 messages), anything you typed in the welcome conversation, the guide and tradition you chose, and your progress through a seven-day plan.
To delete them: in the guide's tab, tap the trash icon to clear the conversation; in Me, use "Delete what you wrote to …" and "Delete my prayers"; deleting the app removes everything on the phone. Linen has no backup server. Your phone's own iCloud or computer backup includes this data, which Apple handles under its privacy policy. You can export your highlights, saved verses and prayers as a text file from Me → Export.
Questions you ask your guide
The guide's answers are written by AI. When you ask a question, the app sends it over an encrypted connection to Linen's server, which runs on Cloudflare. Our server adds the guide's instructions and sends the question to a third-party AI model provider, which generates the answer. The answer comes back the same way. Your question is processed outside your phone, on our server and the provider's.
What is sent with each question:
- the question itself, and up to the last 12 messages of your conversation, so the guide can follow the thread;
- the verse you asked about, if you started from a verse;
- the tradition you chose (Protestant, Catholic or just exploring), your Bible translation and which guide you chose;
- whether the app's own safety check found words about a crisis (see "If you are in crisis");
- a random install ID created by the app (it is not linked to your name, email or Apple ID) and the anonymous RevenueCat ID described under "Purchases".
Your questions and the answers are not stored by Linen's server or by our AI service provider. The provider receives each question only to generate the answer. Our server does not write questions or answers to a database or to our logs, which hold only counts, response codes and error types.
Please don't include names, health details or anything else private in a question. Before your first question, the app explains this and asks you to agree. You can use everything else in Linen without asking a question.
Daily question limit
Free accounts can ask 3 questions a day. To count them, our server keeps a daily tally against your install ID, your RevenueCat ID and your IP address. It stores only scrambled (salted and hashed) forms of these, never the originals, together with a number, and deletes each day's tally two days later. To know whether you have Premium, our server asks RevenueCat about your anonymous RevenueCat ID and remembers the answer, under a scrambled ID, for up to 24 hours.
Prayers you share
Sharing a prayer is optional. Until you tap "Share this prayer", the prayer stays on your phone. When you share one, it is stored on Linen's server so the people you send the link to can read it and pray.
What our server keeps
| What | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|
| The prayer's words, any updates you add, and whether and when you marked it answered (with what you wrote about it) | To show it to the people who have the link or whom you sent it to | 30 days after you share it (you can extend once by 30 days), or 7 days after you mark it answered, whichever comes first. Then it is deleted from the server. Your copy on your phone stays. |
| Your display name (the name you chose, such as "Sarah") | So people know who asked, and so the person you prayed for knows it was you | Until you delete your sharing data, or a year after your phone last contacted the server |
| Who prayed and on which day, and the few words they sent, with their display name if they gave one | Shown only to the person who asked for prayer | Deleted with the prayer |
| Your prayer partners, and people you blocked (with the name they had when you blocked them, so you can unblock) | So you can send prayers to partners, and so blocked people can't reach you | Until either of you ends the partnership or unblocks, or the device's data is deleted |
| A random device key made by the app (we store only a scrambled form) and a random device ID | To know that requests come from your phone, without an account | Until you delete your sharing data, or a year after your phone last contacted the server |
| A list of what happened ("Ben prayed for you"), names and kinds only | So the app can show what's new when you open it | 30 days |
| Daily counts under scrambled IDs and IP addresses | Limits that stop spam and abuse | 2 days |
Shared prayers are not end-to-end encrypted. Linen's server can read them, which is how we check them for spam and abuse and act on reports. They are encrypted in transit and stored encrypted by Cloudflare. Nobody can find a shared prayer by searching: there is no public list, and each link contains a long random code that only the server can check (we store only a scrambled form of it). Anyone who has the link can read the prayer, so share it only with people you trust. You can turn off a link or make a new one at any time.
Who sees what: people with the link see your display name, the prayer, your updates and whether it was answered. Only you see who prayed, how often and what they wrote. Nobody else sees the names of other people who prayed, their words or how many people prayed.
The check before words are saved
Before a shared prayer, update, note or display name is saved, our server checks it for links, phone numbers, emails, requests for money and similar spam. It then sends the words to our AI service provider, with an instruction to answer with one word saying whether they break the community guidelines (for example sexual content, hate or harassment). The provider does not store them, and we keep only a count of the results of this check. The words themselves are saved only if they pass, as part of what you shared. If the check finds a problem, the words are not saved and you're told why.
If you are praying for someone
If someone sends you a link and you tap "I prayed", on the web page or in the app, we record that someone prayed, on which day, and whether it was in the app or on the web. Your name and a few words are optional; if you add them, only the person who asked for prayer sees them. On the web page your browser keeps a random visitor ID, the name you gave and whether you agreed to the guidelines in its local storage, so the page remembers you; our server stores only a scrambled form of the visitor ID. You can clear them by clearing this site's data in your browser.
Reports and blocks
Anyone who can see a prayer or a note can report it and block the person who wrote it. A report saves a copy of the reported words, the reason chosen and when it was made, so we can review it. We keep the copy until 30 days after the report is handled and the report record for 180 days. When there are new reports, we receive an email that says only how many are open, not what was reported. We may remove reported content and turn off sharing for a device that breaks the community guidelines.
Deleting what you shared
- Stop sharing one prayer: open it and tap "Stop sharing". It is deleted from the server straight away.
- Delete everything you shared and everything about your phone on our server: Me → "Delete my prayers". This also deletes your prayers on the phone. (It needs an internet connection; if you're offline, nothing is deleted and you can try again.)
- Deleting the app does not reach our server. Anything you shared is then deleted on the schedule above, and your device's data a year after it last contacted us. To have it deleted sooner, email us.
Notifications
Reminders, including prayer reminders, are scheduled on your phone and never show what you wrote. Turning them on sends nothing to us.
If you share a prayer or become someone's prayer partner, the app may ask to send you notifications, such as "Sarah prayed for you". If you allow it, the app sends our server the notification address Apple gives your phone (a push token), and our server asks Apple's Push Notification service to deliver the notification. A notification contains only a display name and the kind of event, never what anyone wrote. We keep the push token with your device's sharing data, delete it when Apple tells us it is no longer valid, and delete it with that data. You can turn notifications off in iPhone Settings → Notifications → Linen.
If you are in crisis
If something you type to your guide, or a prayer you're about to share, mentions suicide, self-harm, abuse, a child being hurt, sexual assault, an overdose or danger right now, the app shows phone numbers for US help lines (such as 988) first. This check happens on your phone. For a question, the only thing it adds is a yes-or-no flag, so the answer can point to the same help. Someone reading a shared prayer about a crisis is shown the same help lines on the page. We do not contact anyone and we do not keep a record of the check. Help lines you call or text are run by those organisations under their own policies. Linen is not an emergency service: if someone is in danger, call 911.
Purchases
Subscriptions are processed by Apple. We never see your payment details. We use RevenueCat, Inc. to confirm which purchases are active on your device. RevenueCat receives an anonymous app user ID and your purchase history for this app. Our server sends that anonymous ID to RevenueCat to check whether you have Premium, as described above. See RevenueCat's privacy policy.
Audio
All audio is built into the app, and playing it does not contact any server. The voices, Mia and James, are AI voices made with ElevenLabs before release; nothing you do in the app is sent to ElevenLabs.
Our website
linenbible.com uses no cookies, no analytics and no advertising or tracking scripts, and loads nothing from other companies. The prayer pages store only what is described under "If you are praying for someone". The trial page (linenbible.com/try) keeps your answers in your browser and sends nothing to us.
Service providers
- Cloudflare, Inc. runs Linen's server, database and website. Like any web host it sees your IP address to deliver each request and to block attacks; we do not store IP addresses except in the scrambled daily counts described above, and we have turned off Cloudflare's request logs for Linen's server.
- An AI service provider generates the guide's answers and checks shared words before they are saved, as described above. It does not store your questions or those words.
- Apple delivers notifications and handles purchases; RevenueCat confirms purchases.
Where your data is processed
Cloudflare's network is global, and our service providers may process data in the United States and other countries. So your data may be processed outside the country where you live, including in the United States, where data protection laws may be different from yours. We give it to these providers only to run Linen as this policy describes, and the commitments in this policy apply wherever it is processed.
Children
Linen is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. Sharing prayers, sending notes and choosing a display name are for people 13 and older. If you believe a child under 13 has shared something, email us and we will delete it.
Your rights
You can delete what is on your phone and what you shared yourself, as described above. You can also ask us to access, correct or delete data we hold about you by emailing linen@decky.cc. Because there are no accounts, we may ask you for something only your phone has, such as the link to a prayer you shared, so we can find it. Depending on where you live, laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act or Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act may give you these and other rights, and we will respond to requests as those laws require. We do not sell or share personal information for advertising.
Changes
If this policy changes, we will update the date above and, for material changes, tell you in the app.
Contact
linen@decky.cc, or see our support page.