Last updated: 31 August 2026

Pray Watch (“the app”) is developed and maintained by IslamiCity, Culver City,
California, United States. This policy explains what data the Pray Watch mobile app
accesses, collects, uses and shares, and what the praywatch.app website collects.
Questions: salam@praywatch.app

We treat privacy as a fundamental right. Pray Watch has no user accounts, no
advertising, no analytics SDK, no crash-reporting SDK and no advertising identifier.
We do not sell, rent or trade any user data, and we do not operate any server that
receives your personal data.

PART A – THE PRAY WATCH MOBILE APP

1. LOCATION DATA

Pray Watch is a prayer-time app. Prayer times, the Qibla direction, sunrise and sunset
and the Islamic calendar are all functions of where you are, so the app needs a location
in order to work. This section explains exactly how that works.

1.1 The types of location data we access

• Precise location (ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION): GPS-level latitude and longitude. Used when
  automatic location is turned on.
• Approximate location (ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION): a position derived from Wi-Fi or the
  mobile network. Used as a fallback when GPS is unavailable, for example indoors.
• Background location (ACCESS_BACKGROUND_LOCATION): location while the app is closed or
  not in use. Used only if you separately grant “Allow all the time” – see section 1.4.
• A city you enter yourself: the city name and its coordinates, when you use the
  location search instead of granting a permission.

1.2 How we access and collect it

• Automatically, with your permission. When you grant the location permission, the app
  asks Android’s location services (the Google Play Services Fused Location Provider)
  for a position. It tries a high-accuracy GPS fix, then the last known fix, then a
  Wi-Fi / mobile-network fix.
• Only when it is needed. The app requests a position on first run, when you tap
  “Update location”, when you re-enable automatic location, when you open the app’s
  prayer screen, and when the geofence described in section 1.4 reports that you have
  travelled. It does not poll or track you continuously.
• Manually, with no permission at all. You can decline the location permission entirely
  and type a city under Settings > Prayer > Location > Search location. The whole app
  works this way.
• No movement history. The app does not record, log or build a history of your
  movements. The only location history that exists is the list of cities you have
  chosen yourself, which you can clear at any time.

1.3 How we use it

Your location is used only to:

1. Calculate the five daily prayer times, sunrise, Midnight and the Last Third of the
   night, using the astronomical algorithm built into the app;
2. Calculate the Qibla compass bearing towards the Kaaba;
3. Determine the correct time zone so that times are shown in local time;
4. Display your city name in the app and in prayer notifications;
5. Show your location on a map on the Masjid Location screen;
6. Schedule your adhan and reminder alarms at the correct local times.

We never use location for advertising, profiling, tracking, or any purpose unrelated to
prayer times.

1.4 Background location

If, and only if, you separately grant “Allow all the time”, Pray Watch registers a
single geofence (a circular boundary, 75 km by default) around your saved location
through Android’s location services. When your device travels outside that boundary, the
app wakes briefly, obtains one new position, updates your prayer times and time zone,
re-arms your alarms, and sets a new boundary around the new place.

• Why: so that your prayer times and adhan alarms stay correct when you travel, without
  you having to remember to open the app.
• What is collected: one current position at the moment you cross the boundary.
• What is not done: no continuous tracking, no route or movement history, and no
  transmission of any position to us.
• Entirely optional: if you decline background access, everything else works normally –
  you simply tap “Update location”, or search for a city, after you travel.
• How to withdraw it: Android Settings > Apps > Pray Watch > Permissions > Location, and
  choose “Allow only while using the app” or “Don’t allow”. You can also turn Automatic
  location off inside the app under Settings > Prayer > Location.

1.5 Who receives your location, and who does not

We do not operate a server that receives your location. Your coordinates are never sent
to IslamiCity or to Pray Watch, and we never store them anywhere outside your own
device. All prayer-time and Qibla mathematics run on your device and work offline.

To provide the features above, the app relies on Google services on your device. The
following data is sent to Google as a service provider:

• Obtaining a position: handled on your device by Google Play Services, in order to
  produce a location fix.
• Time zone lookup: your latitude and longitude are sent to Google’s Time Zone service
  to resolve the correct time zone for that place, so prayer times are shown correctly.
  If this lookup is unavailable, the app falls back to your device’s own time zone.
• City search: the text you type into the search box, and the city you then select, are
  sent to Google Places to return search suggestions. Your coordinates are NOT sent
  with a search.
• City name lookup: your latitude and longitude are converted into a city name for
  display, using the geocoding service built into Android.
• Masjid Location map: your latitude and longitude are used by Google Maps to draw the
  map and its pin.

Google’s handling of that data is governed by the Google Privacy Policy
(https://policies.google.com/privacy) and, for maps, the Google Maps/Google Earth
Additional Terms of Service (https://www.google.com/help/terms_maps/).

The app also downloads optional adhan recitations and notification tones, on demand,
from our content hosts cdn.islamicity.org (with cdn.tazul.me as a fallback). These are
ordinary file downloads: no location and no personal data are included in the request.
As with any internet request, the host can see your IP address and which file you
requested. Downloaded audio is saved in the app’s own private storage.

1.6 Where it is stored, and for how long

Your current location (latitude, longitude, city name and time zone) and your list of
recently used cities (up to 30) are stored only in the app’s private storage on your
device. They are kept until you change them, clear the app’s data, or uninstall the app,
at which point they are permanently deleted. Android’s cloud backup and device-transfer
are switched off for this app, so this data is not copied to any backup or to a new
device. There is no cloud copy for you to request or erase, because none is ever made.

1.7 Your controls, in summary

• Deny or revoke the location permission at any time in Android Settings; the app
  continues to work with a city you enter manually.
• Turn Automatic location off under Settings > Prayer > Location.
• Choose a city manually at any time, which pins your location and switches the
  geofence off.
• Erase everything with Settings > Apps > Pray Watch > Storage > Clear data, or by
  uninstalling the app.

2. OTHER DATA THE APP ACCESSES

All of the following stays on your device and is never transmitted to us:

• Notifications (POST_NOTIFICATIONS): to show prayer, adhan and reminder notifications.
• Notification history: a local record of the notifications the app has shown (type,
  prayer, title and time), kept for a few days so you can review recent prayers, then
  automatically deleted.
• Compass and accelerometer sensors: to point the Qibla arrow. No permission is required
  for these and their readings are never stored or sent.
• Alarms and reminders (exact alarms, run at startup): to sound the adhan at the exact
  prayer time and to restore your alarms after the device restarts.
• Display over other apps, and full-screen notifications: to show the full-screen adhan
  screen when a prayer begins.
• Your app settings: calculation method, madhab, iqama offsets, chosen sounds, theme and
  similar preferences.
• Audio you download: adhan recitations and notification tones you choose to download.

The app has no access to your contacts, photos, camera, microphone, calendar, call logs,
messages, health data, or your files. It does not collect any device identifier and does
not use an advertising ID.

The app can open certain pages (praywatch.app, islamicity.org, quranplus.app and our
social media pages) in an in-app browser window. Those pages are ordinary websites and
behave as they would in any browser; the app does not pass your location to them.

3. INFORMATION YOU CHOOSE TO SEND US

• Email to support. If you write to us, we receive your email address and whatever you
  include. You may choose to include non-identifying technical details (app version,
  device model, Android version and your app settings) to help us reproduce a problem.
• Feedback on our website. If you post feedback or vote on our feature board, we receive
  what you submit there.

We use this only to answer you and to fix problems, and we delete it on request.

4. THIRD-PARTY SERVICES USED BY THE APP

• Google Play Services (Location and Geofencing): obtaining a location fix and detecting
  that you have travelled.
• Google Places: city search suggestions.
• Google Maps for Android: the Masjid Location map.
• Google Time Zone service: resolving the time zone for a set of coordinates.
• Google Play In-App Updates: telling you when a new version of the app is available.
• Our content hosts (cdn.islamicity.org, cdn.tazul.me): downloading adhan and tone audio.

We do not integrate Firebase, Google Analytics, Crashlytics, AdMob, or any other
analytics, attribution, advertising or crash-reporting service. The app contains no
in-app purchases; any donation link opens our website.

5. CHILDREN

Pray Watch is a general-audience religious utility. It does not knowingly collect
personal data from children. It has no accounts, no user-generated content, no chat and
no advertising.

6. HOW WE KEEP DATA SECURE

Because the app keeps your data on your own device, it is protected by Android’s
application sandbox and by your device’s own lock screen and encryption, and it is
excluded from cloud backup. Every network request the app makes – audio downloads and
the Google lookups described above – uses an encrypted HTTPS connection. Because we hold
no database of users, there is no central store of user data that could be breached.

7. DATA RETENTION AND DELETION

We retain no app user data on our servers, because the app sends none to us. All app
data lives on your device and is erased when you clear the app’s data or uninstall the
app. For anything you sent us voluntarily, such as a support email or website feedback,
write to salam@praywatch.app and we will delete it.

PART B – THE PRAYWATCH.APP WEBSITE

This part applies to the website only, not to the mobile app.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form,
and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be
provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it.

Media

If you upload images to the website or through our support, you should avoid uploading
images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can
download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt in to saving your name, email address and
website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in
your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser
accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close
your browser. When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login
information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen
options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for
two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed. If you edit
or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie
includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just
edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.).
Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor had
visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed
additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content,
including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and
are logged in to that website.

How long we retain your website data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is
so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding
them in a moderation queue. For users that register on our website, we also store the
personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or
delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username).
Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your website data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an
exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have
provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you.
This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or
security purposes.

Where we send your website data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Changes to this Policy

We will update this page whenever the app’s data practices change, and we will revise the
“Last updated” date at the top. Material changes will also be noted in the app’s release
notes.

Contact

We would love to hear your questions, concerns and feedback about this privacy policy.
Write to us at salam@praywatch.app

IslamiCity
Culver City, California, United States