Privacy policy

Wrestle with God · last updated October 13, 2026

Wrestle with God is an iPhone app for reading the Bible and exploring questions about God with Hannah, a character voiced by an AI model. It has no accounts, no ads and no tracking. This page explains what leaves your phone, why, who handles it, how long it's kept, and your rights.

Who is responsible

The controller of your data (the person responsible for it under data-protection law) is Oliver Encabo, who makes Wrestle with God under the name Taxpayer Labs. Write to thehonestcivilian1@gmail.com about anything on this page.

What stays on your phone

Your conversations with Hannah, your journal, prayers, saved verses and notes, your meditations, your reading plan and progress, highlights, the things Hannah remembers about you (you can see, change and forget them in Settings) and your settings are stored only on your iPhone, encrypted while it's locked. We never store them. Deleting them in the app, or deleting the app, removes them.

The Bible, your reading plans and Hannah's free words that are the same for everyone (her introduction and question for each chapter, her word on the verse for today, and the ready-made meditations, including Advent) are part of the app itself. Reading them sends nothing anywhere.

What is sent when you ask Hannah something

Only when you ask Hannah for something written just for you (talking with her, a meditation in your own words, Ask, or her personal reading notes) does the app send a request, and only after you've agreed the first time; you can withdraw that in Settings, and everything that doesn't need her keeps working. The request goes to our server, which passes it to OpenAI's GPT model and streams her reply back. It contains:

• what you wrote, and the recent part of that conversation or meditation;
• the Bible passages involved;
• the church tradition you chose, if you chose one, and how well you said you know the Bible;
• a short summary so she can remember you (at most about 2,400 characters): how well you said you know the Bible, your reading plan, day and progress, the last chapter you opened, how many chapters you've read and the books you've finished, your minutes with the Word this week, themes you've explored this month, the titles of your conversations and short summaries of earlier ones, how many prayers you've marked answered, and, as many as fit, the things she remembers about you (people you've mentioned, prayer requests, what you're carrying, hopes, milestones, how you like her to speak);
• your open prayers and the answers you wrote in your journal after readings, but only those that touch what you're talking about at that moment. Anything tender, such as health, goes only when you're speaking of it;
• when she chooses passages in a conversation: today's date, some of the things she remembers about you and a summary of the conversation so far, so she doesn't repeat herself and can keep that summary up to date.

Because these can show your religious beliefs, which data-protection law treats as a special category, we rely on your explicit consent to send them, which is why the app asks first and lets you withdraw it.

Each request also carries a random identifier made on your iPhone (kept in its Keychain, so it can outlast deleting the app; it isn't linked to your name, Apple ID or anything else about you) and, if you subscribe, the App Store's signed record of your subscription.

What our server keeps

Our server does not keep the text of requests or replies. It checks the App Store's record against Apple's certificates and reads only the subscription's id, product and dates (never your name, email or payment details, which Apple doesn't share). For each subscription it counts, per day, how many replies were asked for and how many words of the AI's (tokens) were used, to apply a fair daily limit; these counts are deleted after a week. If Apple tells us a subscription was refunded or revoked, we keep its id so it can't be used, until Apple says the refund was reversed. To help OpenAI detect abuse, each request carries a one-way scrambled form of the subscription's id.

Our server runs on Cloudflare, which, like any web host, sees the internet address your iPhone connects from, and keeps short technical logs of requests (not their contents) for a few days.

OpenAI

OpenAI writes Hannah's replies as our processor. We ask it not to store requests (store: false). Under OpenAI's API terms, data sent through its API is not used to train its models, and it may keep requests for up to 30 days to detect and investigate abuse before deleting them. See OpenAI's privacy policy.

OpenAI and Cloudflare handle data in the United States and elsewhere, under their data-processing terms, which include the standard contractual safeguards UK and EU law ask for when data leaves those places.

Reports

Anyone can report something Hannah wrote, with or without a subscription. We receive her words, the reason you chose, any note you added and the random identifier made on your phone, and keep reports for up to a year to review them and improve how she behaves. To have a report deleted, email us roughly when you sent it and a few of the words; we'll find it and delete it.

Microphone and speech

The microphone is used only while the mic button is on, to type what you say into the box. Apple's speech recognition turns your voice into text, on your iPhone where it can; otherwise Apple processes it under Apple's privacy policy. We never receive your voice.

Her voice and reminders

Hannah's reading voice is downloaded once from a file host, which, like any website, sees the request for the download; after that it runs on your iPhone. Reminders, if you turn them on, are scheduled on your iPhone; nothing is sent to send them.

Subscriptions

Subscriptions are sold and managed by Apple. We never see your payment details.

What we don't do

We don't sell or share personal data, show ads, track you across apps or websites, or use analytics.

How long things are kept

• On your phone: until you delete them, or the app.
• Daily counts on our server: a week. Refunded subscription ids: until the refund is reversed.
• Reports: up to a year, or until you ask us to delete one.
• At OpenAI: up to 30 days. Cloudflare's request logs: a few days.

Your rights

Wherever you live, and under the UK GDPR and the EU GDPR where they apply, you can ask us for a copy of what we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to receive it in a portable form; and you can withdraw your consent at any time in Settings, without affecting what was done before. Almost everything is on your phone, where you can see and delete it yourself; our server holds no conversations, only the counts and reports described above. Email thehonestcivilian1@gmail.com and we'll answer within a month. If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK (ico.org.uk) or the data-protection authority where you live.

Crisis help

How the app responds when someone may be in danger is published on our support page. It never needs a subscription.

Children

Wrestle with God is rated 13+ and is not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect anything from them.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, this page will say so, with a new date at the top. Questions: thehonestcivilian1@gmail.com.