This privacy policy is to let you know how Pillars handles data.
This notice provides you with information regarding your rights and explains how, why and when we collect and process your data.
If you have any questions or want to exercise any of your rights set out in this privacy notice, please contact us at salaam@thepillarsapp.com.
We are The Pillars Group Ltd, trading as Pillars.
We are registered in England and Wales under company number 13341895.
We can be contacted by email at salaam@thepillarsapp.com.
This privacy notice covers the Pillars website (thepillarsapp.com) and the Pillars App on iOS and Android.
If our practices change materially in future versions, we will update this notice and post the new version on our website.
We believe all users of the app (both Muslims and non-Muslims) are entitled to their privacy and have built Pillars around this central principle. Your data is an amaanah, and we treat it that way.
Whilst the app uses your location to calculate accurate prayer times and qibla direction for your specific geolocation, this is all done locally (i.e. on the phone) and your coordinates are never sent to or stored on Pillars servers.
Location permission is asked for during onboarding and requires your explicit opt-in.
A few specific features involve limited country or city-level data leaving the device, only to make those features work:
You can turn location permission off at any time in your phone's Settings app.
To understand how the app is used and improve it, we collect anonymous usage analytics through PostHog, hosted on servers in the EU.
This includes things like which pages and features are used, your device model, operating system version, app version, and a random app-generated identifier. This identifier is not linked to your name, email or any advertising ID - in other words, it is not linked to your personal identity.
We explicitly strip away data we consider unnecessary, such as location coordinates and IP addresses, from our usage analytics and crash reports because we believe it to be unnecessary. This preserves your privacy whilst still allowing our team to address performance issues and improve the experience.
You can turn product analytics off at any time in the app's Settings.
If the app crashes or encounters an error, a crash report (e.g. stack trace, device model, OS version, app version) is sent to Sentry, our error-monitoring provider, so we can find and fix bugs.
Location coordinates and IP addresses are never included in these reports.
You can turn crash reporting off at any time in the app's Settings.
If you opt into notifications, your device receives them via Firebase Cloud Messaging.
To deliver notifications reliably, we store an anonymised push token for your device, together with a random app-generated device identifier and your anonymous subscription identifier, on our own notification infrastructure (hosted on Cloudflare).
This allows us to send you the notifications you've given explicit permission for in the app (e.g. during onboarding).
You can turn notifications off at any time in the your phone's Settings app.
Payments for Pillars Premium are processed entirely by Apple (App Store) or Google (Google Play). We never see or store your card details.
We use RevenueCat, a subscription-management service, to validate purchases and manage your subscription status. This uses an anonymous randomly generated identifier and your purchase history within the app.
If you contact support or submit a report through the app, we receive what you choose to send us.
To help diagnose issues, the app may also attach an anonymous diagnostic log (e.g. device model, app version, relevant settings and recent in-app technical events) linked to a random install identifier. Diagnostic logs are stored securely and used only to resolve your issue.
Support and feedback forms are provided by Tally.
We collect the email addresses of individuals who have provided their emails and explicitly opted into our mailing list and/or beta programme (e.g. TestFlight).
We'll keep your email address for the purpose of sending you updates until either we decide to stop sending updates, or you ask us to delete your data by getting in touch at salaam@thepillarsapp.com.
You can opt out of email communications at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any message we send to you, or by contacting us at salaam@thepillarsapp.com.
We collect the mobile numbers of individuals who have provided their mobile number and explicitly opted into our app testing (alpha/beta) programme (e.g. TestFlight).
You can opt out of our testing programme at any time by contacting us at salaam@thepillarsapp.com.
We use Flodesk as a service provider in order to deliver email updates. The way Flodesk stores and processes your data is subject to their privacy policy (https://flodesk.com/privacy).
Plausible is lightweight and open source web analytics for our Pillars website (thepillarsapp.com). It gives us basic information such as how many people are visiting our website. It's an alternative to analytical tools such as Google Analytics which have significant privacy concerns. Plausible has no cookies and is fully compliant with GDPR, CCPA and PECR. You can find out more about their privacy policy here (https://plausible.io/privacy).
Because the data the app produces is anonymous, Pillars cannot link it to your personal identity (e.g. your name or email address).
Under data protection regulation, you have...
• the right to be informed about the collection and use of your personal data
• the right to access the personal data we hold about you via a Subject Access Request
• the right to correct inaccurate personal data
• the right to have your personal data deleted
• the right to request restriction of or suppression of your personal data
• the right to make use of your personal data for your own purposes across different services
• the right to object to the processing of your personal data in some circumstances.
If you would like to exercise any of the rights outlined above, please contact us by email at salaam@thepillarsapp.com.
You have the right to complain to us and to the data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office. Their address is Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, United Kingdom. They can be contacted by phone on +44 303 123 1113 (local rate) or +44 1625 545745 (national rate). You can find details on how to report a concern at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
Our website may contain hyperlinks to websites that are not operated by us. Please review the privacy policy posted on any site you visit before using the site or providing any personal information about yourself.
We may update this privacy policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to our practices, new features or for other operational or legal reasons. Updated versions of this policy will be posted on our website.
For more information about our Privacy Notice, or if you would like to make a complaint, please contact us at salaam@thepillarsapp.com.