Gently The short version
Your prayers, your journal, the people you pray for, your conversations with Hannah, and everything she remembers are kept on your phone. Our servers do not store them. We have no analytics on how you use Gently, no ads, and we sell nothing about you.
What stays on your phone
Everything you write in Gently is kept in an encrypted database on your phone. The key that opens it is kept in your phone's own secure storage. Reminders are set on your phone too; no reminder passes through our server.
The only copy outside your phone is your own phone backup. On iPhone, that is your iCloud backup, and it can bring everything back on a new iPhone. Gently cannot read your backup.
On Android, the key never leaves the phone it was made on, so a backup cannot be opened on a different phone. A new Android phone starts fresh, and you invite your people again. We would rather say that plainly than keep a copy of your prayers ourselves.
When you talk to Hannah
Hannah is built on AI. Before your first message, the app asks if you are happy for your words to go to the AI model. When you send a message, your phone sends it, the earlier messages from that conversation, and only the notes the answer needs (a first name you asked her to pray for, say) to our server. Our server passes them to Claude, a model made by Anthropic, through Cloudflare's AI Gateway, and sends the answer back. Nothing is stored on our server and nothing about what you wrote is logged. No account and no device id go with it.
Pending We are asking Anthropic for zero data retention: they would keep none of it, and it would be deleted the moment Hannah has answered. This line will say so plainly once the agreement is in place, and before Gently is in the app stores.
If a message suggests you may be in danger, Hannah shows crisis contacts before anything else. That check runs on your phone and on our server, and nothing about it is kept. Hannah does not learn from your prayers.
If you invite someone
Gently does not register your phone with our server until you invite someone or accept an invite, and it asks you first. From then on, our server holds only what a link between two phones needs:
- An anonymous id for your phone, whether it is an iPhone or an Android, and a scrambled copy (a hash) of its secret key, never the key itself. It also notes the date and time your phone first connected, and the date, not the time, it last checked in.
- Each invite as a hash of its link, never the link. An invite lasts seven days. It is deleted when someone accepts it, and an expired one is deleted within a day.
- For two people who pray together: two phone ids and the date they were connected. Names stay on each phone.
- Messages waiting to be delivered. "I prayed for you" carries no words. A prayer request carries the words you chose to send, up to 280 characters, and is deleted as soon as the other phone receives it.
- So that "I prayed for you" goes at most once an hour, the time of the last one, with the two phone ids. It is deleted after an hour, or at the latest at the next daily clean-up.
That is the whole list. A phone that has not checked in for 180 days is removed from our server, with everything tied to it. Our server runs on Cloudflare, which, like any web host, sees your IP address when your phone connects. We use it only to limit too many requests in a minute, and we do not store it.
Payments
When Gently Plus goes on sale, Apple or Google will bill you, and we will never see your card.
From then on, each time you open Gently, the app will ask RevenueCat, a service that confirms store purchases, whether you have Gently Plus. It will ask whether or not you have ever subscribed. RevenueCat will receive a random id made on your phone only for this, your IP address, the store's receipt for any purchase, and the details apps send with every request, such as the phone's system, the app's version, and your language and store country. It will never receive your prayers, your name, or anything you write.
RevenueCat will keep the record of purchases under that random id, so it can answer. It will show us its records under that id, and totals such as how many people subscribe. We cannot tell who you are from it. That id is not the one our server uses if you invite someone.
What we never do
- No analytics on what you do in the app, no advertising, and no advertising code in the app.
- No selling or sharing what you write, and no following you across other apps or websites.
- This website sets no cookies and loads nothing from any other company.
Delete everything
In the app, open Settings, then Yours, then Delete everything. It removes every prayer, note, and memory from your phone, and your phone's rows from our server: its id, its connections, its invites, and anything waiting for it. Your iCloud backup no longer has them after its next backup. If your phone is offline, the app tries the server part again the next time you open it. If you remove the app without deleting, the 180 day rule clears the server rows.
Adults only
Gently is made for adults. It is not meant for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect anything from children.
The laws for AI companions
Hannah follows California SB 243 and New York General Business Law Article 47. She says she is AI at the start of every conversation and at least every three hours after that, and she points you to crisis services when you need them. The AI disclosure says more.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it.
Pending The name of the company that makes Gently is added here before launch.
Pending Questions about your privacy will go to an email address listed here before launch.