Votiva

Privacy policy

Last updated: 3 November 2026 · Español · Português

Votiva writes a prayer from what you share. What you write may reveal your faith or your health, so we handle it with the greatest care: we do not keep your story, we do not know who you are, and there is no advertising or tracking.

1. Who is responsible

Hector Waldman, a sole trader based in Portugal (tax number 316416592, Rua Visconde da Coriscada 86, 6200-154 Covilhã, Castelo Branco, Portugal). For any privacy matter: privacy@getvotiva.com.

2. What we process, why, and on what basis

Your intention: What you write in the form (the story, topics, type of intention, your relation to the person, the saint or title of Mary you choose, the gender you pick and the length). We use it only to write your prayer. It may reveal religious beliefs or health information, which the law protects specially, so we only send it after you give explicit consent in the app (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a) and 9(2)(a)). Votiva does not keep it.
The name of the person you pray for: To write the prayer it never leaves your phone: the prayer arrives with a blank and your phone fills in the name. Only if you listen to it in Votiva's voice is it sent, inside the text of the prayer, to read it aloud (see "Prayer audio").
Prayer audio: If you tap "Listen" or "Pray along" with Votiva's voice, the text of the prayer, including the name you typed, goes through our server to Google Cloud Text-to-Speech, in the European Union, or, if you pray in Portuguese, to ElevenLabs, in the United States, which turn it into speech. ElevenLabs keeps each text it reads in our account, and Votiva deletes it from there as soon as the audio arrives. Votiva keeps neither the text nor the audio; it only counts how many letters were read that day, under the same hash of the identifier as the other counters. Your phone's voices send nothing. Legal basis: your consent (art. 9(2)(a) GDPR), as for your intention.
Prayers you send to someone: If you tap “Send”, we keep in our database in the European Union (Belgium) the title and text of the prayer with the name you typed, the passage, your signature if you add one, the audio read in Votiva’s voice, a hash of the identifier so that only you can delete it, and how many people tapped “I’m praying too” (not who). What you told Votiva is never sent. Anyone with the link can read and listen to the prayer: the link is long and random, search engines do not index it, and it stops working after 30 days. Legal basis: your consent (art. 9(2)(a) GDPR), which you give when you tap “Send”.
An anonymous identifier and app verification: Your phone uses an anonymous identifier (Firebase Authentication) and proves it is the genuine app (Firebase App Check). They make sure only the app can request prayers and let us apply the daily limit. Basis: our legitimate interest in preventing abuse and protecting the service (Art. 6(1)(f)). We do not know who it belongs to.
Usage counters: For the daily limits we keep a cryptographic hash of the identifier, not the identifier itself, and how many prayers you asked for and how many reports you sent that day. Same basis as above.
Free prayers and subscription: Your first 3 prayers are free. To know how many you have used, we keep a cryptographic hash of the anonymous identifier, that number and the day of the first one. If you subscribe, Apple or Google take the payment and RevenueCat tells us whether your anonymous identifier has an active subscription; for that, RevenueCat keeps the identifier and the purchase details (product, dates, price and store country). We never receive your name, your email or your payment details. Legal basis: the subscription contract (art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) and our legitimate interest in giving the free prayers only once (art. 6(1)(f)).
Reports: If you report a prayer, we keep that prayer as it was written (it may repeat details of your intention, but never the person's name), the reason, your comment if you write one and the day, without your identifier, to review it and improve the service. Sending it is voluntary; the basis is your consent when you send it.
Technical logs: Our server logs technical errors and warnings that never include your story or your identifier. We do not keep request logs with IP addresses.
Visits to this website: To count visits to getvotiva.com we use Cloudflare Web Analytics. It uses no cookies, stores nothing in your browser and does not follow you across sites. It records the page viewed, the page you came from, the country and the type of browser and device, and shows us only totals. Basis: our legitimate interest in knowing whether the website reaches people (art. 6.1.f).

Giving us your intention is not mandatory, but without it we cannot write the prayer. We make no automated decisions with legal effects on you. The prayer is written by artificial intelligence and may be wrong: you can report it from the prayer itself.

3. Who we share data with

Only with providers that process it on our behalf and under contract:

Anthropic, PBC (United States) receives your intention to write the prayer. It deletes inputs and outputs within 30 days, or up to 2 years if its safety systems flag them, and does not use them to train its models. Data processing agreement with the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.
Google (Firebase and Google Cloud): the anonymous identifier and app verification (Firebase Authentication runs from the United States and keeps IP addresses for a few weeks), our server and database, in the European Union (Belgium), and turning the text of the prayer into speech, also in the European Union, without keeping it. Google participates in the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.
ElevenLabs: turning the text of prayers in Portuguese into speech, in the United States; Votiva deletes each text from its history when the audio arrives. ElevenLabs participates in the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.
RevenueCat, Inc. (United States) manages subscriptions: it receives the anonymous identifier and the purchase details, never your intention. Data processing agreement with the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.
Cloudflare, Inc. (United States) counts visits to this website, without cookies and without identifying you. Cloudflare participates in the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.

Apple and Google take the subscription payment as independent controllers, under their own privacy policies.

We do not sell or pass your data to anyone else. You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards for these transfers at privacy@getvotiva.com.

4. How long we keep it

Your intention: Votiva does not keep it; Anthropic, up to 30 days (2 years if flagged for safety).
Prayer text and audio: Votiva does not keep them, except for the prayers you send.
Sent prayers: 30 days from sending, or until you delete them in “Sent prayers” or with “Delete my data”.
Usage counters: deleted automatically within a few days (at most 3).
Reports: 90 days.
Free prayers: the hash of the identifier, 90 days from the first one.
Subscription: RevenueCat keeps the anonymous identifier and the purchase history while you are subscribed and for as long as legal and tax obligations require.
Anonymous identifier: until you delete it in the app; if you stop using Votiva, the weekly cleanup deletes it after 90 days without use (within 100 days at most).
Your consent: stored only on your phone until you withdraw it.
The days you prayed and your daily reminder: kept on your phone to count them and remind you; Votiva never receives them. "Delete my data" deletes them too.
The intentions you keep so that Votiva asks you how they went (title, who it is for and their name, and when to ask): only on your phone; Votiva never receives them. "Delete my data" deletes them too.
Your novena in progress (the intention, the intercession, the reminder time and the days prayed): only on your phone. Each day's prayer is asked for like any other, without the name. "Delete my data" deletes it too.
The rosary: its prayers are the same for everyone, and Votiva keeps their audio so as not to read them again. The intentions you set on each decade never leave your phone and are not read aloud.
The Christmas novena: the days you prayed and the reminder time stay on your phone. Its prayers are the same for everyone, like the rosary's. "Delete my data" deletes them too.
The Angelus notice at noon: only its time, on your phone. "Delete my data" deletes it too.

5. Your rights

You can access, correct and erase your data, restrict or object to its processing, and ask for portability. You can withdraw your consent at any time in the app, under Privacy, as easily as you gave it; this does not affect what was already done. On the same screen, "Delete my data" removes your anonymous identifier and your consent. It does not cancel your subscription, which you manage in your app store settings; to erase the purchase data RevenueCat keeps, write to us.

Because we do not know who you are, we may not be able to find data from earlier requests; write to privacy@getvotiva.com and we will do our best. You can also complain to Portugal's Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados (Av. D. Carlos I, 134, 1.º, 1200-651 Lisboa, www.cnpd.pt) or to the data protection authority of your country.

6. Minimum age

Votiva is for people aged 16 or older.

7. Security

All communication is encrypted (HTTPS). Only the genuine app can talk to our server, each part of the system has only the permissions it needs, and the AI service key is kept in a secret manager.

8. Changes

If we change this policy we will tell you in the app. If what you consent to changes, we will ask for your consent again before sending anything.