Privacy

Ofam Journal is built so that your journal stays yours. Your journal never leaves your iPhone. There are no accounts, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking, and we never sell or share your information.

What stays on your iPhone

Your entries, the photos and videos you attach, reflections, Seasons, your name if you give one, and your settings are stored only on your device. We have no server that receives them.

Reflections, search, the verse suggestions, the reading of mood and theme, the memory of past entries and Seasons are all worked out on your iPhone. Search, mood and theme use small models that are built into the app. Replies use Apple's on-device model where your iPhone has one, and simple built-in rules otherwise. None of this sends your words anywhere.

Deleting the app deletes this data. You can save a copy first with Settings, Export my journal. Your iPhone's own backup settings still apply to data stored on the phone.

Voice

When you speak an entry, your words are written down on your iPhone. Until the speech models below are ready, the app uses Apple's speech recognition, set to run on the device. After that it uses the speech models on your iPhone. Your audio is kept on the phone only until its words are written, then deleted. It is never sent to us or to anyone else.

The speech models download

To hear you well, Ofam brings two speech models onto your iPhone: Parakeet (about 465 MB) and Whisper (about 632 MB), about 1.1 GB together. They download by themselves from Hugging Face (huggingface.co) after you install the app, only on Wi-Fi, and never on cellular data or in Low Data Mode unless you start the download yourself in Settings, Voice. This is a file download only: no audio and nothing you write is sent, and once the models are on your iPhone, speech works offline.

Bible text from YouVersion and Tyndale

The Bible's public-domain translations are stored in the app and need no connection. Licensed modern translations, including the NIV, which the app uses by default when it can, are read online through the YouVersion Platform (api.youversion.com). When the app shows a verse in one of these translations (today's verse, the verse in the Pause, a verse suggested for an entry, or a chapter you open in the reader), it asks YouVersion for that chapter. The request names only the book and chapter. It never contains your journal, your entries or anything you write.

The app may also ask YouVersion which versions are available (this list is kept on your device for up to a week). Licensed text is held in memory only, never saved on your device. These requests carry the app's key and a random code made on your device for YouVersion, which does not identify you. Like any website, YouVersion can see the network address of the request. Without a connection, the bundled Berean Standard Bible is shown.

The New Living Translation (NLT) is read the same way from Tyndale House Publishers, through its NLT API (api.nlt.to). When you choose the NLT, the app asks Tyndale for the chapter or verses it is about to show. The request names only the book, chapter and verses, and carries the app's key. It never contains your journal, your entries or anything you write, and the text is held in memory only, never saved on your device. Like any website, Tyndale can see the network address of the request, and when no key is set it uses that address to count requests. The app asks Tyndale for at most a few dozen passages a day; past that, the bundled Berean Standard Bible is shown until the next day.

Translating a note

When a note on the Wall is in another language, you can translate it with Apple's Translation, which runs on your iPhone. If a language is not on your iPhone yet, iOS may offer to download it from Apple. Ofam does not send the note anywhere to translate it.

The Pause and Screen Time

The Pause uses Apple's Screen Time (Family Controls). You choose the apps to rest in Apple's own picker, and Ofam receives only an opaque token for your choice: Ofam cannot see the names of the apps you choose or your app usage. The mood you tap during a pause and the time of each pause are stored on your device, in a space shared only between Ofam and its own Screen Time extensions. They never leave your iPhone.

Face ID and passcode

If you turn on Lock with Face ID, iOS handles Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. The app only learns whether unlocking succeeded.

The Wall

The Wall is an exchange of short notes of hope: you send one note, and a note from someone else comes back to you. Nothing you write is sent until you send a note.

Today's note

Once a day, after you finish the first steps of the app, Ofam asks our server for one note of hope for you, whether or not you ever write one. That request carries only your two-letter country code and the anonymous install code described below, never your journal, your name or anything you have written. The note is kept on your device. Without a connection, a note written by Ofam is shown instead.

What is sent when you send a note

• The text of your note. It may be delivered to other people using the app, shown without your name.
• Your two-letter country code (for example KE), taken from your iPhone's region setting. If none is sent, our server works out the country from your network address. The person who receives your note sees "from someone in" that country.
• An anonymous install code. The app makes it on your device by scrambling (SHA-256 hashing) the iPhone's app-specific identifier, so it is not your name, your Apple account or your phone number.

Before your first note, the app asks you to agree to the Wall guidelines. Your agreement is remembered on your device.

What our server keeps

Our server stores the note's text, its country and the time. It never stores the install code or your network address as sent: it scrambles each of them again with a secret key and keeps only those scrambled versions, to limit sending to five notes a day, to make sure you never receive your own note, to remember which notes you have already received, to honor reports and blocks, and to bar a sender who breaks the guidelines.

How notes are checked

Before a note travels, our server checks its text automatically, with rules that run on our own server and are not shared with any outside moderation service. Notes with links, contact details, unkind or harmful words, sexual content, threats, promotion, or words that suggest self-harm are not delivered. Their text, cut to 280 characters, is kept marked as rejected so we can improve the checks. If you are struggling, please see the Wall guidelines for where to find help.

Reports and blocks

You can report any note you receive, or choose not to see notes from its sender. Either way the note disappears from your device at once. A report sends the note's id (or, from older versions of the app, its text) and your scrambled install code. The note is taken out of the Wall for everyone while we review it, within 24 hours, and the report is kept with its review status. Reporting a note also blocks its sender for you. A block alone sends the same two things and records that you no longer want notes from that sender. The sender is never told, and we never share who sent a note. If a report cannot reach us, the app keeps it on your device and sends it the next time it connects.

Notes you receive

Notes that come back to you are kept on your device, so you can read them again. The server remembers only which notes were delivered to your scrambled install code, so it never sends you the same note twice.

Deleting a note

To have a note you sent removed, send us its text through the contact form at ofamjournal.com/#support, and we will delete it.

Analytics and tracking

Ofam contains no analytics, advertising or tracking code. It does not track you across apps or websites.

The contact form

When you write to us through the form on our website, we keep your message, the name and email address you choose to give (both optional), and a salted, one-way hash of your network address so we can limit spam. We use them only to read and answer your message, and we delete them on request.

Children

The app does not knowingly collect personal information from children. Wall notes are anonymous and checked before they travel, and we remove any note that shares personal details.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, we will update this page and the date above. Questions: use the contact form at ofamjournal.com/#support.