Privacy Policy | Pastures

1. Introduction

Welcome to Pastures ("we," "our," or "us"). We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring the security of your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our journaling and spiritual growth application.

Pastures is designed to help you connect with your thoughts, experiences, and the Word of God through a suite of thoughtfully designed features.

We regularly review our privacy practices and look for ways to improve how we protect your information. As our services and privacy standards evolve, we remain committed to strengthening our safeguards and communicating meaningful changes clearly.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Personal Information

Account information (name, email address, profile details)
Authentication data provided through our secure login system
Contact information when you reach out to us

2.2 Journal and Content Data

Journal entries and personal reflections
Spiritual content and faith-related information you share
User-generated content including text, images, and files
Responses to devotional prompts and spiritual assessments

2.3 Usage and Technical Data

Device information and browser type
IP address and general location data
App usage patterns and feature interactions
Performance data and error logs

3. How We Use Your Information

3.1 Core App Functionality

Provide personalized journaling and spiritual growth features
Generate AI-powered categorization of your journal entries
Create personalized devotional prompts based on your experiences
Offer spiritual guidance and insights tailored to your journey

3.2 Service Improvement

Improve app performance and reliability using aggregate usage data, technical data, and error logs—not the content of your journal entries, prayers, reflections, or other user-created content
Develop new features using product usage patterns that do not require anyone to read your content
Provide customer support using only the information you choose to include in your support request

3.3 Optional Analytics

With your permission, Pastures uses Google Analytics for Firebase to understand how the app is used and improve its features and reliability. Analytics is off unless you choose to share it. Declining does not limit any app functionality, and you can change your choice at any time in Settings.

When enabled, analytics may include an anonymous app-instance identifier, device and app information, general location derived from IP address, screens viewed, sessions, and deliberately selected feature interactions or error events. We do not set a Google Analytics user ID, link analytics to your Pastures account, or collect advertising identifiers for analytics.

Journal or prayer text, notes, names, recordings, images, spiritual categories, and content sent to AI features are never sent to Google Analytics for Firebase. Learn more about how Google uses information from apps that use its services in Google's privacy information.

4. AI Processing and Data Analysis

Pastures uses cloud-based AI service providers to provide features such as categorization, transcription, semantic search, personalized prompts, reading-plan generation, and Bible-study assistance. When you use these features, the content needed to fulfil your request may be securely transmitted to our backend and to the applicable AI provider. AI processing is not performed solely on your device.

We do not read your content to improve Pastures.

The Pastures team will never routinely access or review your journal entries, prayers, reflections, or other user-created content. That content is processed automatically only as needed to provide the features you choose to use. We do not use it for service improvement, advertising, or training general-purpose AI models. Human access is limited to content you intentionally share in a support request or exceptional access required by law or necessary to investigate a security incident, and only to the minimum extent necessary.

Analyze your journal entries to provide meaningful categorization
Generate personalized devotional content based on your experiences
Identify patterns in your spiritual journey to offer relevant guidance

All AI processing is designed to serve your spiritual growth and is conducted with the highest respect for the sacred nature of your personal reflections.

5. Information Sharing and Disclosure

We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information to third parties. We may share your information only in the following circumstances:

We do not share your content for advertising or service improvement.

We do not disclose your journal entries, prayers, reflections, or other user-created content for advertising, analytics, model training, or service improvement. When a feature requires a service provider, only the content necessary to provide that feature is transmitted for automated processing or secure storage. We do not permit service providers to use your content for their own purposes.

Service Providers: With trusted third-party services that help us operate our app (authentication, hosting, analytics, and in-app feature workflows), limited to what they need to provide those services
Legal Requirements: When required by law or to protect our rights and safety
Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale, or transfer of our business
With Your Consent: When you explicitly authorize us to share specific information

6. Data Security

We implement robust security measures to protect your personal and spiritual content. We use encryption in transit, such as HTTPS/TLS, and rely on our cloud providers’ encryption-at-rest controls for data stored in Firestore, Firebase Storage, Pinecone, and other managed infrastructure.

Encryption of data in transit and at rest
Secure authentication systems
Regular security audits and updates
Access controls and monitoring
Secure hosting infrastructure

While we use industry-standard security practices, no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure. We continuously work to improve our security measures.

7. Your Rights and Choices

You have the following rights regarding your personal information:

Access: Request a copy of your personal data
Update: Correct or update your information
Delete: Request deletion of your account and data
Export: Download your journal entries and content
Analytics choice: Decline optional analytics or withdraw your consent at any time in Settings without losing any app functionality

To exercise these rights, please contact us at the information provided below.

8. Third-Party Services

Pastures integrates with the following third-party services:

Firebase Auth and Firestore: For secure user authentication, account management and account data storage
Google Analytics for Firebase: For optional app usage analytics, only when you choose to share analytics
GCP Cloud Run and Firebase Storage: For reliable app performance and data storage
Pinecone: For vector database storage that supports semantic search features

These services have their own privacy policies, and we encourage you to review them.

9. Data Retention

We retain your information for as long as necessary to provide our services and fulfill the purposes outlined in this policy:

Account information: Until you delete your account
Journal entries: Until you delete them or your account
Google Analytics for Firebase event data: Up to 14 months
Legal compliance: As required by applicable laws

10. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the "Last updated" date. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes.

11. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us:

Email: support@pastures.app
Website: pastures.app

This Privacy Policy reflects our commitment to protecting your privacy while helping you grow spiritually through our platform. We handle your personal and spiritual content with the utmost care and respect.