About this policy
Cultivate Faith is created and operated by Jonathan Belloit, publishing under the name Preparing Soil. In this policy, “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to Jonathan Belloit as the operator of the app and the person responsible for your information.
This policy explains what Cultivate Faith collects, how information is processed and stored, and the choices available to you.
The essentials
At a glance
- Your original written reflections are stored in an encrypted database on your device, not saved to our cloud database.
- When you generate personalized guidance, your reflections and relevant personalization context are sent through our server to OpenAI for processing.
- We do not include your account ID, email address, or saved first name in the content sent to OpenAI. Information you write yourself may identify you.
- Cloud-backed guidance, saved items, profile information, and submitted feedback are associated with your account.
- We do not sell personal information or share it for advertising.
- You can use the app and purchase Partner without registering an email account.
Information we collect
Content you write
Your answers to reflection questions are stored locally on your device, encrypted at rest. Their original text is not saved to our cloud database.
When cloud backup is enabled, derived content can be stored in your account: reflection summaries, identified topics, generated prayers, Scripture references and explanations, and saved Scripture passages and prayers.
Reflections and personalization may reveal religious beliefs or other sensitive information, depending on what you choose to provide.
Account information
If you register, Google Firebase Authentication handles your email address and password. We do not see your password.
You may also provide a first name or display name. Continuing as a guest creates an account identified by an anonymous account ID, without requiring an email address or password. If you provide a first name during personalization, it is saved to that guest account.
Personalization and preferences
Optional personalization includes your first name, tradition or denomination, preferred names for God, faith journey stage, and current focus. You can skip personalization.
We also store app preferences, such as text size, Bible translation, reminder settings, and your data-storage choice.
Your saved first name is used inside the app and your account. It is not included in prompts sent to our AI provider.
Personal memory profile
The app keeps a short profile of recurring themes from your reflections and passages you have already received. This helps guidance develop over time and reduces repetition.
The profile is held on your device and mirrored to your account when cloud backup is enabled.
Feedback you submit
If you submit a helpful/not-helpful rating or a comment, we store that feedback in your account. The record includes the associated generation ID and date, the content you rated, and technical context such as the model and prompt version when available, the reflection mode, and whether fallback content was shown.
The feedback record does not copy your reflection answers, memory profile, or generated guidance. We use feedback to improve guidance quality and do not send feedback or comments to an analytics service or AI provider.
Feedback is voluntary, including for guests. It is submitted only when you choose to send it, even if you use device-only storage or have disabled usage records. Unsent comments are not uploaded. You can change or remove feedback below the same guidance.
Service and reliability records
Optional usage records
We record generation counts, the AI model used, processing time, and token counts against your account ID to monitor cost and performance. These records contain none of your written content. You can turn them off in Settings → Account → Data & Privacy.
Required daily-limit records
We separately count generations against your account ID to enforce daily limits. Turning off optional usage records does not disable these counts.
Required reliability records
When a generation fails and the app falls back to generic content, it may record the failure reason, date and time, platform, app version, account ID, and subscription tier. These records contain none of your written content. The account ID helps distinguish repeated failures affecting one person from failures affecting many people. Reliability records remain enabled when optional usage records are turned off.
App-wide totals
We maintain combined service totals for cost and performance monitoring. These totals do not carry individual account IDs.
Subscriptions and payments
RevenueCat manages subscription status using your app account ID. Apple or Google handles payment processing. We do not receive your payment card details.
Registering an email account is not required to purchase a subscription.
How your reflections are processed
When you generate guidance, your answers are sent over an encrypted connection to our server, which forwards the relevant content to OpenAI.
What that request contains
The content may include your reflection answers, tradition, preferred names for God, faith journey stage, current focus, and recurring themes from your memory profile.
Account identity and free-text content
Our server authenticates the request using your app account. We do not include your account ID, email address, or saved first name in the content forwarded to OpenAI. However, identifying information you include in your answers or other free-text content may be transmitted.
Two important details
- Choosing device-only storage does not prevent AI processing. That setting controls storage, not the transmission needed to generate personalized guidance.
- OpenAI does not use API content to train its models by default. It may retain content for abuse monitoring under its API data policies. We do not have a zero-data-retention arrangement and do not promise that requests are deleted immediately after a response is generated.
Where your data is stored, and your control over it
In Settings → Account, you can choose:
- Cloud backup: Derived content, such as summaries, guidance, saved items, and your memory profile, is backed up to your account.
- On this device only: The app moves supported backed-up content to your device and removes its cloud copy.
Original reflection answers remain local under either choice. They are not backed up for restoration on another phone.
Device-only storage does not remove your authentication account, account preferences, submitted feedback, or the service and reliability records described above. You can remove submitted feedback separately or delete your account.
What we do not collect
The iOS and Android apps do not collect advertising identifiers or use advertising networks, cross-app tracking, or third-party analytics SDKs.
We do not request access to your location, contacts, photos, camera, or microphone.
Daily reminders are scheduled locally on your device. We do not collect push notification tokens to send remote reminders.
Service providers
We use:
- Google Firebase for authentication, cloud storage, and server functions.
- OpenAI to generate personalized Scripture recommendations and prayers.
- RevenueCat to manage subscription status.
- Apple and Google for app distribution and payment processing.
These providers process information under their applicable terms and policies. We do not sell your personal information or share it with data brokers or for advertising.
International transfers
Our providers may process and store information in the United States and other countries. If you live elsewhere, your information may be transferred to and processed in those countries.
Data retention and account deletion
We retain account information and cloud-backed content while your account is active. You can remove individual saved items and submitted feedback in the app.
Delete your account in the app
To delete your account, open Settings → Account → Delete Account. Successful deletion removes your authentication account and the information stored under your app account, including personalization, summaries, guidance, saved Scripture and prayers, memory profile, and submitted feedback and comments.
Request deletion by email
You can also request deletion without installing the app by emailing cultivate.support@preparingsoil.com with the subject “Delete my data.” We may need to verify that the account belongs to you. We aim to complete email requests within 30 days and will explain if additional information is needed.
Records that may remain
Account deletion does not remove every operational record. Daily-limit records, optional usage records already collected, and reliability records may remain for service operation, cost monitoring, and failure analysis. These records contain none of your written reflections, but some retain your account ID. They are not all anonymous or aggregate-only. We retain them while needed for those purposes.
App-wide totals also remain. Subscription and transaction information held by our payment and subscription providers is subject to their retention policies.
A remote deletion request cannot erase data stored on your device. To remove local app data, delete the app and its data from the device, or clear its app storage where supported.
Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription. Cancel separately through the Apple App Store or Google Play.
Your rights and choices
Within the app, you can:
- Update personalization information.
- Review and remove memory-profile items.
- Change your storage preference.
- Remove saved items and submitted feedback.
- Disable optional per-account usage records.
- Turn reminders on or off.
- Delete your account.
Depending on where you live, you may also have rights to access, correct, export, or delete personal information, or to object to or restrict certain processing.
Contact cultivate.support@preparingsoil.com to make a request. We will respond within the period required by applicable law.
Security
We use encrypted network connections, encryption for locally stored reflection answers, authenticated server requests, and access rules intended to restrict account data to its owner.
No method of storage or transmission is completely secure. Please protect your device and use a strong, unique password if you register.
Children’s privacy
Cultivate Faith is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided personal information, contact us so we can investigate and delete it.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the app changes. The date above identifies the latest revision. We will communicate material changes in the app or by email.
Cultivate Faith is currently operated by Jonathan Belloit as a sole proprietorship. If operation transfers to a company or nonprofit, we will update this policy to identify the new operator and notify you before the change takes effect.
Contact us
Privacy questions and requests: cultivate.support@preparingsoil.com
Visit Cultivate Faith Support