Colophon — Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-11-04 (version 1.5)

Colophon is a private study Bible. This policy explains, plainly, what the app does with your information. The short version: your reading, notes and highlights stay on your device unless you choose to export them, and none of it needs an account. Two optional parts of Colophon use Erek Studio’s server: Sunday Worship (Colophon Pro) downloads each week’s service from it — the same text for everyone, with no sign-in — and Fellowship, the optional Prayer Wall and chat, needs sign-in and keeps what you share there on Erek Studio’s chat server. Both are described below. Colophon shows no ads and links no advertising or analytics SDK of any kind. On iOS it does ask once for tracking permission; the section below explains why, and why your answer changes nothing.

Outside Fellowship and Sunday Worship, we collect nothing

Reading in every bundled translation, Scripture search, notes, highlights, bookmarks, tags, notebooks, word study, Confession and the rest of Colophon Pro need no Colophon account and no sign-in. We do not receive or store anything you do with them, and we never sell your personal information. There is no analytics, no crash reporting, and no advertising SDK in the app. Your Bible reading, your searches, your notes and your highlights are never sent anywhere.

Optional narration downloads contact GitHub, and Sunday Worship’s weekly download contacts Erek Studio’s server, as described below. No advertising identifier is read and no advertising consent form is shown. If you choose to use Fellowship, the “Fellowship (optional)” section below says exactly what it keeps, why, and for how long.

The iOS tracking prompt

On iOS, Colophon asks once for permission to track you. Whatever you answer, nothing about the app changes: no advertising identifier is read, nothing is used for tracking, and there is nothing to attach an identifier to.

The prompt is there for a bookkeeping reason, not a technical one. Colophon’s App Store privacy record still lists a device identifier from the 1.1 ad layer. App Store Connect refuses to remove that row — every attempt returns an error saying the app contains a tracking permission string — and Apple requires any app whose record declares tracking to present the permission prompt. Version 1.2.2 was rejected for having the record without the prompt. So the prompt is back, honestly asked and honestly unused, while we keep asking Apple to clear the record.

Android has no such prompt, no advertising-ID permission, and the same answer: nothing is collected for tracking or advertising.

No ads, no tracking

Bible reading in every bundled translation, Scripture search, notes, highlights, bookmarks and tags are free. Colophon Pro features (including Listen, Word Study, lexicon search, cross references, Your Words, original-language Word of the Day details, Sunday Worship, Confession, Backup & Restore, the Study Desk, Notebooks, Study Sheets, Import, backgrounds, and in-app text size) are opened by buying Colophon Pro once; while a Fellowship Chat+ subscription is active, they are open too. Eligible existing readers keep previously retained background and text-size choices. There is no ad-supported tier and no way to watch anything in exchange for a feature.

Earlier versions of Colophon (1.1) offered a rewarded video, served by Google's AdMob SDK, as a second way into those features. That layer has been removed in full: the SDK, the consent form, the Android advertising-ID permission and the SKAdNetwork declarations are all gone from the app. The iOS permission prompt returned in 1.2.2, for the App Store bookkeeping reason described above and for nothing else — no advertising SDK came back with it. If you are still running 1.1, the previous version of this policy describes what that build did.

Your study stays on your device

Everything you create in Colophon — your notes, highlights, bookmarks, notebooks and word-study history — is stored only in a private database on your device. We never see it. It is not uploaded anywhere.

Confession stays in memory

Confession (Colophon Pro) is a private, guided time of prayer. Nothing you write in Confession is saved or sent anywhere: it is held only in the app’s memory while the screen is open, and cleared when you let it go, when you leave the screen, and when the app goes to the background. It is never written to your device’s storage, backups or logs, and nothing about it reaches us. While Confession is open, the app switcher shows a plain cover instead of the page, and on Android the screen cannot be captured. Colophon also asks the keyboard not to learn from what you type there; the keyboard itself, including dictation, is provided by your operating system under its own privacy policy.

Backups are files you control

The Pro “Backup & Restore” feature writes a single file containing your study and hands it to your device’s share sheet (Files, a drive, AirDrop, email to yourself, or wherever you choose). Colophon keeps no copy of that file, no history, and no destination, and it never transmits it. The backup file is unencrypted, so anyone who holds it can read it — keep it as you would a paper notebook. What happens to the file after you save or send it is governed by whatever service you chose (for example, iCloud Drive or Google Drive), under their privacy policies, not ours.

Audio downloads

Audio downloads (Colophon Pro, optional): For the BSB recording by Barry Hays (CC0), Colophon fetches the book's audio from the public GitHub Releases of mustafasalimerek-bit/colophon-audio (GitHub is owned by Microsoft). As with any download, GitHub can see your device's IP address and which files were requested. Colophon receives nothing about you; GitHub shows us only how many times each file has been downloaded in total.

Downloaded audio is stored locally, excluded from device backups, and can be deleted per book or in full in Settings → Audio Bible. Playback uses local files. During continuous listening, the next book can download automatically, beginning near the end of the current book. Speech synthesis for KJV and WEB uses installed English voices on your device; it does not send the text to us or to a speech service. Android accepts only voices confirmed to work offline. BSB can also use device speech while narration is unavailable. Adding a new system voice may involve a separate download managed by your operating system.

Sunday Worship (Colophon Pro, optional)

Sunday Worship brings an hour of Scripture and prayer each Sunday in twelve parts, five minutes apart — in the app and, once you turn it on, as notifications at a start time you choose. The prayers and reflections are written once a week for everyone with the help of AI; nothing about you goes into them, and every passage is shown from the Berean Standard Bible inside the app.

What is sent, and to whom. When you open Sunday Worship, and — while it is turned on — when you open Colophon from Thursday each week, Colophon downloads that Sunday’s service from Erek Studio’s server, hosted by Cloudflare. Like any download, the server sees your device’s IP address, the date of the Sunday requested and the app version. Nothing else is sent: no sign-in, no identifier, nothing you read, note or write. The last few Sundays’ services are kept on your device, so last Sunday’s is there all week; older ones are deleted. Without a download, Colophon uses an order of worship that ships inside the app.

On your device. The twelve messages are local notifications, scheduled by your device at the time you choose; for these, Colophon asks for permission to send notifications only when you turn Sunday Worship on, and no push token is created. Your start time stays on your device. Your time zone is read from your device’s settings to place the hour on your clock; it is never sent, and no location permission is used.

Word of the Day and local widget storage

The optional Word of the Day widget receives a local cache of curated words from the app. Without Pro it receives only the English headword, language label and verse reference/identifier. Pro (or Fellowship’s Chat+, while it is active) also supplies the Greek or Hebrew word, transliteration and verse text for supported widget sizes. It makes no network request for daily content.

On iOS the app and WidgetKit extension share this cache and a locally generated installation marker through the App Group group.com.erekstudio.colophon. The marker distinguishes this installation from stale widget data; it is not an advertising identifier and is never transmitted. Android stores equivalent widget data locally. Widget links open the app on your device, where purchase access is checked again. The cache is refreshed when you open the app and when purchase ownership changes. This does not introduce any new collection by Colophon.

Fellowship (optional)

Fellowship is an optional community inside Colophon: a Prayer Wall, where members post prayer requests and pray for one another, a Fellowship chat room, and private messages between people who share that room. Only Colophon users can join, and a Fellowship account is separate from any chat account in Erek Studio’s games. Fellowship is for adults (18 and over). Nothing in it is needed to read the Bible, keep notes or use Colophon Pro, and nothing below applies unless you sign in to it. It works the same way on iPhone, iPad and Android.

What Fellowship keeps, and only if you use it:

Why: to run Fellowship — to sign you in, show what you share to the members you share it with, deliver notifications, verify Chat+, apply the community rules and the age limit, and keep the community safe.

Who processes it for us:

No advertising or analytics company receives anything from Fellowship.

Sensitive information. Fellowship is a Christian community, so taking part can reveal your religious beliefs, and a prayer request may say something about your health or someone else’s. What you share is your choice. It is processed only to run Fellowship — shown to the members you share it with and checked as described above — and never used for advertising or profiling. When you join, Fellowship asks separately for your explicit consent to this processing. Please don’t write full names, addresses or medical details; the composer reminds you.

How long it is kept:

Your choices: Fellowship is optional — everything else in Colophon works without it. You can post a request without details (“Unspoken request”) or hide your name on it, leave notifications off, block or report anyone, and delete your account in Fellowship’s settings, or by email if you no longer have the app. Questions: the address below.

Purchases

Colophon offers a one-time Pro unlock and optional tips through the App Store and Google Play, and Fellowship offers an optional Chat+ subscription. These purchases are handled by Apple and Google; we never receive or store your payment details. For Chat+, the chat server receives the store’s record of the subscription to verify it, as described under Fellowship. Apple’s and Google’s privacy policies govern the transactions.

Bible text and study data

The Scripture texts and study data bundled with the app (translations, the original-language lexicon, cross-references) are public-domain or openly-licensed resources included in the app itself. Using them involves no data collection.

Children

Colophon is not directed at children. Its Bible and study tools collect no data from anyone, including children; Sunday Worship’s weekly download is described above. Fellowship is for adults: it asks for your birth year and is closed to anyone under 18. There is no advertising and no profiling of any kind.

Changes

If this policy ever changes, the updated version will be posted here with a new date.

Contact

Questions about this policy: mustafasalimerek@gmail.com