Privacy

What Chasten knows about you

Last updated: September 28, 2026

Chasten exists to help you read the Bible. This page explains, in plain English, what the app collects, why it collects it, and how to make it all go away. If any sentence here reads like it was written by a lawyer instead of a person, tell us and we’ll fix it: hello@chasten.ai.

Who we are

Chasten is made by Chasten LLC, a for-profit limited liability company in Florida (“Chasten,” “we,” “us”). This policy covers the Chasten mobile app and this website, chasten.ai.

What we collect

Nothing, until you save something

The first time you open the app, it creates an anonymous session — a random identifier that lets your phone keep your place, your highlights, and your streak. It is not tied to a name or an email, and at that point we have no idea who you are. If you later create an account, those same records come with you; nothing you saved is lost. The website never creates one: reading on chasten.ai starts no session and stores nothing about you with us.

Reading on chasten.ai

The website needs no account and sets no cookies. It keeps a few preferences in your browser’s own storage, where only your browser can read them: your theme, text size and language, where you left off reading, your last few searches, and whether you closed the banner that offers the app. They never leave your device, and clearing your browser data removes them. If you arrive from one of our ads, the site also remembers which ad for that visit only, and adds it to the App Store and Google Play buttons so we can count which ads bring people to Chasten. It is forgotten when you close the tab.

We count how the site is used with Vercel’s cookieless analytics: the page you opened, the page you came from, your country, the kind of device and browser, how quickly the page loaded, and a handful of actions such as opening a search, switching translations, or sharing a verse. There is no cookie and no identifier that follows you from one day to the next or from one site to another, Vercel does not keep your IP address, and we cannot tell who any visit was. The verse cards that appear when a link is shared are drawn by the same host and carry only the verse.

We also use PostHog to see the path from a visit to the app stores: which pages people open, where they came from, and whether they tap an App Store or Google Play button. On the Bible pages it records only that a Bible page was open, never the book, chapter, verse or search, and on an invitation page it never records whose invitation it is. It sets no cookie. It keeps one random number in your browser’s storage so it can tell when the same browser comes back; that number is not your name, your email or your account, it never follows you to another site, and clearing your browser data removes it. If you sign in here, your visits are linked to your account’s own random analytics number, the one described under “Diagnostics and product analytics.” PostHog receives the address your browser connects from, which it uses to estimate your country. Account pages load none of it, and if your browser sends Do Not Track, you are not counted at all.

Signing in on chasten.ai

The account you can sign in to on chasten.ai is the same account as the app: one identity, the same highlights, notes, and saved verses. Signing in happens only on the account pages; the rest of the site never asks. Your session is kept in your browser’s storage, on this site only, and is removed when you sign out. Nothing about your reading is tied to your account unless you are signed in and choose to save a highlight, a note, or a verse.

Your account, if you make one

• First name and last name.
• Email address.
• Birth month and year, entered once so we can check that you’re 13 or older. The check happens on your device, in the app or in your browser, and we keep only the result and the date it was checked — never the month and year themselves. We don’t ask for the day, and we don’t use it for anything else.
• How you found Chasten. On Android, the store tells the app which of our links you installed from, when it was one of ours; otherwise we know only if you choose to tell us when you make your account. We use it to learn which ways of telling people about Chasten are working.
• Your church, if you choose to add one. Church is optional, and your attendance is private unless you deliberately choose to share it.

If you sign in with Apple or Google, they pass us your name and an email address so you don’t have to type them. We never see your Apple or Google password.

Email updates you asked for

If you say yes to email updates, in the app or on chasten.ai, we send you news about new features, with early access first, and the occasional piece of news from Chasten. If you asked to hear when a feature opens, you get one email for that feature. Resend sends these for us, and holds your email address and first name so a letter can greet you by name. It never receives anything about what you read. You can stop them whenever you like: every email carries an unsubscribe link, and Settings in the app or on the web has a switch for each kind. We keep a record of when you said yes and the words you agreed to, so that what you asked for is never in doubt.

Letters from the founder

When you make an account, Chasten’s founder writes to you a few times: a welcome, a check-in a few days later if Chasten hasn’t become part of your days yet, and one question after two weeks if it has. Once you’ve read on seven or more days, one note asks whether you’d leave a store review. Later, if something you asked for ships, a short note to tell you. They go to the email on your account, sell nothing, and never mention anything you read. Every letter has a link to stop them, and replying STOP works too.

Resend sends the letters for us and receives your replies, and holds the original email under its own privacy policy. A reply is kept with your account, like feedback you send in the app, so it can be read and answered. The founder may write back from the same address; feedback from the app is answered only at an address you gave for a reply. Replies and answers are deleted with your account.

What you create in the app

Highlights, notes, and saved verses. These are stored so the app can give them back to you on your next visit and on your next phone.

Feedback you send

If you send feedback from inside the app, we store the kind of feedback (idea, problem, or praise), your message, a screenshot if you attach one, and the app version plus your device’s operating system and version — that last part is what makes a bug findable. We store an email address for a reply only if you ask for one, or for updates you asked for.

Feedback you send, in the app or by replying to one of the founder’s letters, also appears in a private Slack channel with your first name, so it is read quickly, and the founder can answer it from there by email. Slack never sees your email address, and never anything you read.

Your reading activity

Chasten keeps an append-only record of things you did in the app: chapters read, app opens, reading-session minutes, highlights, notes, shares, and saves. Each entry carries the calendar date where you were and your device’s time zone, so “today” means your today and not a server’s.

This record is the whole basis for your streak, your milestones, and the Insights you see about your own walk. It is about you, shown to you. It is not sold, not published, and not turned into a leaderboard — Chasten has no leaderboards anywhere.

Referrals (“Plant a seed”)

If you invite someone, we store a referral code on your profile, the status of that invitation, and a one-way hashed device identifier. The hash exists for one purpose only: keeping referrals honest, so one person can’t farm a hundred of them from one phone. We can’t turn it back into your device, and we use it for nothing else. Referrals are never disclosed in either direction — the person you invite is never told who invited them.

Diagnostics and product analytics

To keep the app from crashing and to see which parts of it are confusing, we use crash reporting (Sentry) and product analytics (PostHog): events like “a screen opened” or “this flow finished,” plus the technical details of a crash. You can turn both off in Settings.

Neither one ever carries the Scripture you read, your highlights, your notes, or the text of your feedback, unless you turn on recordings, described next. The website does not use Sentry, and uses PostHog only as described above under “Reading on chasten.ai.”

When you are signed in, the app and this website tag these events with a random number that belongs to your account. It is not your name, your email or your account number, and it lets us see how Chasten is used across the app and the website together. Deleting your account deletes that record from PostHog too, and turning analytics off in the app’s Settings stops the app sending anything at all.

Recordings, if you turn them on

The app has a switch called “Help make Chasten better,” on its first screen and in Settings. It starts off, and nothing is recorded unless you turn it on. If you do, the app shares recordings of how you use it with PostHog, so we can see where Chasten is confusing and fix it. A small gold dot shows at the top of the screen while it is on.

A recording shows the app as you saw it: the Bible text on screen, your highlights and saved verses, what you type (searches and feedback included), and the names, email addresses and photos the app shows. It never shows your notes, the birth date you enter when you make an account, or the camera when you scan a friend’s code.

Recordings carry the same random analytics number described above, and PostHog keeps each one for 30 days. Turning the switch off, or turning analytics off, stops recording at once, and deleting your account deletes your recordings from PostHog too.

Reminders

Reading reminders are scheduled by your phone, on your phone. Turning them on doesn’t tell us anything, and turning them off doesn’t either.

What we don’t do

• Scripture is never interrupted by advertising. No ad networks and no advertising identifiers in the reader, and nothing in Chasten profiles you in order to sell you something.
• We don’t sell or rent personal information, and we don’t share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
• We don’t ask for what we don’t need — not your contacts, not your photo library beyond a photo you choose to add, not your precise location tracked in the background.

Why we use it

• To run the app: keep your place, sync your highlights and notes, sign you in.
• To show you your own walk: streaks, grace days, milestones, and Insights.
• To answer you when you write to us.
• To keep referrals honest and the service free of abuse.
• To fix crashes and make confusing screens less confusing.
• To meet the age requirement (13+) and our legal obligations.

Who else touches it

Some of what Chasten does needs outside help: hosting, sign-in, crash reports, email, and the publishers who license some translations. We keep the list short on purpose.

For the companies that handle data on our behalf, we choose them on their privacy terms as well as their features, we give each one only what its job needs, and our agreements with them do not permit using your data for advertising or for resale.

A few services we use on their own terms rather than ours, and a Bible publisher whose translation we license would be one of them. Where that is the case we name it below and say what it can see.

• Supabase: the database, sign-in, and hosting behind the app.
• Resend: sends transactional email, such as sign-in links, updates you asked for, and the founder’s letters, and receives your replies to those letters.
• Expo: builds the app and delivers app updates.
• Apple and Google: only if you choose to sign in with them.
• Slack: tells us when a new account is made, with its first name, and shows us feedback you send, in the app or by replying to a letter, with your first name. Never your email address, and nothing you read.
• Sentry: crash reports.
• PostHog: product analytics in the app, recordings of the app for people who turn them on, and on this website the path from a visit to the app stores.
• Vercel: hosts this website, draws the verse cards shown when a link is shared, and counts page views without cookies.

We may also disclose information if the law genuinely requires it, or to protect someone’s safety. If Chasten is ever part of a merger or sale, this policy travels with your data, and we’ll tell you before anything changes.

Children

Chasten is for people 13 and older. When you create an account, in the app or on chasten.ai, we ask for your birth month and year, and if that puts you under 13 we stop there — kindly, without a lecture — and no account or personal information is stored for you.

If you believe a child under 13 has given us information anyway, write to hello@chasten.ai and we will delete it.

Chasten is rated 12+ and is not directed to children. Anyone under 13 is blocked at signup by a neutral age gate, and no account or personal information is stored for them.

Your choices

• Read without an account. The reader never asks you to sign in, and it never will.
• See and change your details in Settings inside the app, or at chasten.ai/account.
• Turn crash reporting, analytics and recordings off in the app’s Settings. The website’s counts are never tied to you; to be left out of them entirely, turn on Do Not Track in your browser.
• Ask us for a copy of what we hold about you by writing to hello@chasten.ai. There’s no self-serve export button yet, so we put your copy together by hand and send it to you.
• Stop the founder’s letters with the link at the bottom of any letter, or by replying STOP.
• Delete everything yourself from Settings, or at chasten.ai/account/delete, at any time.

Deleting everything

In the app: Settings → delete your account. On the web:chasten.ai/account/delete, which asks you to sign in first so that nobody else can do it for you. Either way, it removes your profile, your highlights, your notes, your saved verses, your reading record, your referral entries, the feedback you sent and your replies to the founder’s letters from our live systems. It cascades — we don’t keep a quiet copy of your walk after you’ve asked us not to.

Deletion is permanent and we can’t undo it, so the app asks you to confirm first. Where routine encrypted backups are enabled, they are kept on our hosting provider’s standard schedule — up to seven days — and then age out.

How long we keep things

We keep your account and what you’ve saved for as long as you have an account, because that’s the point — your notes should still be there in five years. Feedback is kept while we work on it and for a while after, so we can tell you it’s fixed. Recordings, if you turn them on, are kept for 30 days. When you delete your account, the rest goes with it.

How we protect it

Data is encrypted in transit. Every table in our database has row-level security, so your rows are readable only by you. Nothing secret ships inside the app itself. Chasten is small, and the amount of data it holds is deliberately small too — the safest data is the data we never asked for.

No service can promise perfect security, and we won’t pretend otherwise. If a breach ever affects you, we’ll tell you plainly and quickly.

Your data is stored in the United States — Amazon Web Services, US East (Ohio), region us-east-2.

Where you live

Depending on where you live, you may have specific rights over your personal information — to see it, correct it, delete it, or object to certain uses. We try to give everyone the same rights regardless of address: the app already lets you see, change, and delete your information, and we’ll honor any request you send to hello@chasten.ai. We will never charge you for asking or treat you differently because you did.

Chasten is operated from the United States, and information is processed and stored here. People read the Bible on chasten.ai from everywhere, in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and reading collects nothing personal. Accounts are open to anyone 13 or older wherever they live; if you create one from outside the United States, what you save travels here to be stored, under this policy. We honor the rights above for everyone. The formal mechanisms some regions expect — those of the GDPR, the UK GDPR, and Brazil’s LGPD, such as a local representative — are not yet in place, and we will add them as Chasten grows in those places.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we’ll update the date at the top, and if the change is significant we’ll tell you in the app and on this site before it takes effect — not by quietly editing a page and hoping you don’t notice.

Talking to us

Write to hello@chasten.ai. A person reads it. You can send privacy notices to that email, or by post to the address below.

Chasten LLC
16400 US Hwy 331 S, Suite B2 #172
Freeport, FL 32439