Privacy in the Phaneia app

Phaneia stores your study work locally. iCloud can sync it between your devices. AI requests require the Phaneia subscription.

Updated October 27, 2026 · Draft awaiting legal review. Phaneia has not been publicly released. The legal assessment, responsibilities in relation to Apple and Anthropic, legal grounds for transfers, deletion procedures and accuracy of operator details still need review before publication. This draft does not constitute legal approval.

This information concerns the Phaneia app. For the website, mailing list and contact, also see the website privacy draft.

AI explanations and conversations run through the operator's Phaneia service. It checks the subscription and passes the request to Anthropic. There is no user account with a name, email address or password: the app signs in with a session for this device. On iPhone, Apple's App Attest service confirms the device; on Mac, a random device key from the Keychain does. The subscription runs through your Apple ID.

1. Controller and purposes

Robert Oberdorfer
Asternweg 49
32676 Lügde
Germany
Email: [email protected]

Phaneia is for reading and studying Bible passages, saving your own study work and AI explanations. AI requests go to Anthropic through the Phaneia service and require the Phaneia subscription. Private iCloud requires your Apple account.

The AI features are a fixed part of Phaneia. The legal basis for the app, including AI requests, is performance of the user contract (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR); there is no separate consent switch for AI requests. The personal learning profile is separate: it relies on your consent (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR), which you can withdraw at any time. Where personal contents reveal religious beliefs or other specially protected data, Article 9 GDPR must be considered in particular. Whether explicit consent under Article 9(2)(a) GDPR is needed for this will be reviewed separately before publication.

2. Local data and private iCloud

On your device, the app stores settings and permission decisions, reading progress, highlights, word-store entries with your own notes, the notebook including earlier revisions, conversations and their history, and learning profile points with their change history. Imported EPUB files are stored with their original contents, metadata and your decision about text transmission.

When iCloud is active for the data store, these changeable study data, including original imported EPUB files, are synced in your Apple account’s private iCloud database. Locally generated reading files and search indexes are rebuilt on each device. EPUBs larger than 49 MB that were imported before an older data migration remain on that device as an exception and may be included in an exported backup. The app reports transfer events; such a report does not prove that all other devices have fully synced.

Apple processes connection and account data under its own terms. See also Apple’s privacy information (German). This draft promises neither processing exclusively in Europe nor any particular end-to-end encryption.

3. AI requests to Anthropic

New AI explanations and conversations require internet access and an active Phaneia subscription. There is no free AI tier. The app only sends an AI request when you use an AI feature. The learning profile stays off until you turn it on yourself (see section 4).

For the session, subscription and billing, the Phaneia service processes an identifier for this device and its session, the confirmation from Apple's App Attest service (iPhone) or a check value of the device key (Mac), details of your App Store transactions for the Phaneia subscription (product, transaction identifiers, purchase, expiry and revocation dates, environment) and, for each AI request, an operation identifier, the feature and the cost incurred. The service passes the request content on to Anthropic. The service does not store the request text in its database, only a check value derived from it (SHA-256) to recognise a repeat of the same request. It keeps the finished answer for one hour so the app can fetch it again after a dropped connection; after that it is deleted at the next maintenance run. Request contents are filtered out of the service's application logs. How long device, session, subscription and billing details are kept must still be decided before publication and added here.

The app sends the current question and the AI context for the particular action. This may include Bible edition details and response language, passage references, book context, editorial glossary entries, glossary IDs of saved terms and eligible learning profile points when the learning profile is on. Conversations additionally send the latest ten or fewer nonempty user or assistant messages after the last context reset, with a total limit of 12,000 characters. The current question is sent separately and does not count towards this history limit. Your question may contain personal or sensitive information; enter only what you want to transmit for the intended explanation.

Selected Bible text and visible excerpts are sent to Anthropic only when the content rights permit server transmission, and within a limited quotation allowance. For imported editions, you decide this permission under Data & sources. The selection must match the active Bible edition; excerpts share that edition’s limited quotation allowance. Without suitable rights, the text excerpts are omitted. This does not automatically remove other context fields such as passage references, book context, glossary entries or permitted learning profile points. The complete EPUB file is not sent as an AI attachment.

Editorial glossary entries that can be resolved for saved terms may also form part of the AI context, even when the saved term is not currently displayed or selected. These are editorial glossary contents. Your personal word note, local word-store record identifier and save time are not automatically transmitted through this path.

Notebook text and personal free-text notes on word-store entries are not part of these automatic AI payloads. If you copy such text into a chat question yourself, it is sent as your question. Notebook formatting happens locally.

Anthropic receives the request from the Phaneia service, not directly from your device. Responsibilities, required agreements and safeguards for transfers to third countries must be clarified before release; no particular contractual assurance is assumed here.

The app does not request server-side chaining of earlier responses. The Phaneia service sends each request with the context it needs to Anthropic's Messages API. This is not a promise that Anthropic retains no data at all. Anthropic describes standard deletion of API inputs and outputs within 30 days, with exceptions such as enforcing its Usage Policy and legal obligations. See Anthropic's API retention information and Anthropic's privacy information for the terms applicable to the account being used.

4. Personal learning profile

The learning profile is an optional extra and starts switched off. It is only used if you turn it on yourself under Learning profile; the legal basis is then your consent (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR). Saved profile points can then be used to adjust explanation depth, terminology and relevant prior knowledge. Under Learning profile you can turn it off again, edit entries or reset the profile.

After a successful chat answer, while the learning profile remains on and no profile reset is in progress, an additional Anthropic request may derive possible lasting learning points from your question, the answer, the limited conversation history, the AI context and eligible existing profile points. Archived entries, entries no longer eligible for context and entries marked Do not profile are excluded from this process. Transmitted profile points include their statements as well as identifiers, kind and status, titles, evidence summaries, relevance guidance, topics, passage references, confidence and sensitivity classifications, and timestamps. At most three returned change operations are processed further. Suggestions may be saved locally and synced through iCloud. As a result, the profile may contain beliefs, recurring questions or personal tensions. Its purpose is to adapt study assistance; it is not intended to make diagnoses or decisions with legal effects.

You can withdraw your consent to the learning profile at any time under Learning profile. Withdrawal takes effect on this device after saving and on other devices after they sync. A device that is still offline may not yet know about a withdrawal made on another device. This does not recall contents already sent to Anthropic. Turning the profile off does not automatically delete saved profile points.

5. Retention, backups and deletion

Study data remain stored until you remove them through available app functions or replace the data. No general automatic expiry is configured for chats, the notebook or the learning profile. The notebook preserves earlier revisions even when the current text is changed or cleared.

The app manages deletion and reset markers to prevent removed data from reappearing during sync. Such markers and permission decisions may remain. Deleting something in the interface therefore does not promise immediate physical removal from every device, provider log and backup. Complete deletion of all notebook revisions and all app data has not yet been accepted as a user flow in the test version.

An exported .phaneiabackup contains study data and original imported EPUB files. You choose where to save it. Backups may contain sensitive contents; protect and delete your own copies yourself. Restoring a backup replaces current study data and preserves an effective withdrawal of the learning profile. It does not delete independently stored backup copies or provider logs.

For a complete deletion request or clarification, contact the operator at [email protected]. He cannot remotely open private iCloud databases or local contents. The specific secure process and retention of technically necessary records must be finalized before publication.

6. Your rights, contact and review before publication

Where the legal requirements are met, you may request access, correction, deletion, restriction and data portability, object to processing based on legitimate interests, and withdraw consent for the future. Contact [email protected] for this. Apple may also be responsible for data in your Apple account.

You may complain to a data protection supervisory authority, in particular the State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information North Rhine-Westphalia. Consent to the learning profile is voluntary; all other functions remain usable without it. Without a subscription, local reading and note-taking functions remain usable.

Before publication, particular review is needed for the legal basis for sensitive profile and conversation contents under Article 9 GDPR, provider roles and third-country transfers, retention of permission decisions, notebook revisions and device, subscription and billing data in the Phaneia service, complete deletion, and consistency with the App Store privacy disclosures. The General Data Protection Regulation is the basis. Operator details were taken from the existing legal notice; their accuracy for current operations has not yet been confirmed.