This English version is the reference; translations are pending legal review.
Privacy notice
Prayer is personal, so we treat what you share with care. This notice explains what we collect, why we need it, who can see it, how long we keep it and what you can do about it. The short version: we collect only what is needed to run a safe, shared prayer space; there are no ads, no analytics or tracking tools, and we never sell your data.
Who is responsible
The controller of your personal data is [Owner name / legal entity], [postal address]. Contact for anything about privacy: [Owner name / contact e-mail]. [If appointed: data protection officer / EU representative and contact]
What we store and why
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Account: e-mail address, password hash (argon2), display name, language, optional country, the date you confirmed you are 16 or older, when you verified your e-mail, when you were last online | To create your account, let you sign in, send you account e-mails (verification, password reset) and keep One Candle 16+. |
| Avatar and the items you wear, your role (pilgrim, host, moderator, admin) | So others can see you in the shared world. |
| Prayer requests, candles and their intentions, “I prayed” marks | The heart of One Candle: sharing intentions and praying for each other. |
| Chat in the shared world | Chat is not saved in the database. The last few lines of each place are kept in the server’s memory so newcomers see the conversation, and disappear when the server restarts. If someone reports you, your most recent lines are attached to that report for the moderators. |
| Friends, direct messages between friends, blocks | To let you keep in touch with people you chose, and keep away people you do not want to hear from. |
| Prayer circles you belong to, their intentions and schedule | To run private circles for the members. |
| Your journal | Private. Only you can read it. It is not shown to other pilgrims or to moderators. |
| Days you visited and prayed, your UTC offset, unlocked items | To count your streaks in your own local day and unlock gentle rewards. |
| Notifications (“someone prayed for you”) and, if you turn them on, your browser’s push subscription | To tell you when someone prayed for your request or wrote to you. |
| Reports you make or that concern you; moderation actions (mute, ban, shadow-ban, hidden or deleted content) and an audit log of what moderators did | To keep the community safe and to make moderators accountable. |
| Sign-in sessions (a random token, stored only as a hash, with start and expiry dates) | To keep you signed in for up to 30 days. |
| Technical data: IP address and basic request details | Used in memory to limit abuse (rate limits) and, for errors, written to short-lived server logs. IP addresses are not stored in the database. |
We do not ask for your real name, birth date, phone number, location, or church. Please do not put such details in public posts. Remember that public prayer requests and candle intentions can be read by anyone.
Legal bases (GDPR)
- Contract: running your account and the features you use (Art. 6(1)(b)).
- Legitimate interests: safety, moderation, preventing abuse and keeping the service secure (Art. 6(1)(f)). You may object; we will weigh your objection fairly.
- Consent: push notifications, which you can switch off at any time (Art. 6(1)(a)).
- Religious beliefs and health: using One Candle, and what you write in prayers, can reveal your faith or details about health. We process this only to provide the service you asked for, on the basis of [legal basis to be confirmed by a lawyer, e.g. your explicit consent at sign-up, Art. 9(2)(a)].
- Legal obligation: when the law requires us to keep or hand over data (Art. 6(1)(c)).
Who can see what
- Other pilgrims see your display name, avatar, what you say in chat and what you post publicly.
- Friends can see whether you are online and where you are in the world. Only the two people in a direct conversation can read it, unless one of them reports a message.
- Circle members see their circle’s intentions.
- Moderators can see reported content, content waiting for review, and basic account details needed to act on reports. They cannot read your journal.
- Service providers who help us run One Candle, only for that purpose and under a data processing agreement: our host [Hosting provider, country], our e-mail provider [SMTP provider, country], and — only if you enable push notifications — the push service of your browser (for example Google, Mozilla, Apple or Microsoft), which delivers an encrypted notification to your device.
Your data is stored in [country / region of the servers]. If any provider handles it outside the European Economic Area, we rely on an adequacy decision or standard contractual clauses.
How long we keep it
- Your account and what you created stay until you delete them or delete your account.
- A candle burns for 24 hours and then goes out; its record stays with your account until you delete the account.
- Chat lines live only in server memory and are gone after a restart.
- Sign-in sessions expire after 30 days. E-mail verification and reset links expire within hours.
- When you delete your account, your account and everything linked to it (candles, prayer requests, messages, journal, circle membership, push subscriptions, sessions) are removed immediately. Circles you own are closed. Reports you filed and moderation log entries stay without your name, so past decisions can be checked.
- Database backups are kept for [14] days and then overwritten, so deleted data disappears from backups within that time. Server logs rotate and are kept for about [a few weeks at most].
Your rights
You have the right to:
- get a copy of your data — open Settings → Your account → Download my data for a JSON file, or ask us for anything it does not include;
- correct it — change your name and look in Settings, or ask us;
- delete it — Settings → Your account → Delete my account (you confirm with your password);
- restrict or object to processing, and withdraw consent (for example turn off push notifications) at any time;
- complain to a data protection authority, for example in the country where you live ([name of the owner's lead supervisory authority]).
Write to [Owner name / contact e-mail] for any request. We answer within one month.
Security
Connections are encrypted (HTTPS). Passwords are hashed with argon2, session tokens are stored only as hashes, and access to the server and to moderation tools is limited to the people who need it. No system is perfect; if a breach ever puts your data at risk, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.
Children
One Candle is for people aged 16 and older. We do not knowingly collect data from younger children; if you believe a child under 16 has an account, please tell us and we will delete it.
Cookies
We use a single essential sign-in cookie and no tracking. Details are in the cookie notice.
Changes
If we change this notice in a meaningful way, we will tell you in One Candle. The date at the top shows the latest version.