Privacy policy

Effective 5 October 2026

Moazzin (the app and moazzin.com) is made and run by Hassan Ansari, an individual developer in India. “We”, “us” and “our” on these pages mean him. Write to [email protected] about anything on this page.

On your device

Everything below stays on your phone, tablet, watch or computer. We cannot see it.

• Location. Your position is used on the device to calculate prayer times and the Qibla direction. Saved places are stored in the app. If you turn on Silent at my mosque or switching places by location, the phone watches the areas around your mosques and places (geofencing), which needs location “all the time” and works even when the app is closed or not in use; that also runs on the device only and never syncs to other devices. Your coordinates are not sent anywhere from these features. The one thing worked out from them that can leave the phone is a yes-or-no “near” answer, and only when you share a mosque's times (see Mosque network).
• Your data. Settings, saved places, the prayer log and qaza, reminders, your mosques and their jama'at times, Tasbih counts, Quran bookmarks and reading position, Listen favourites and calendar events.
• Alerts. Adhan and reminder notifications are scheduled by the device itself. There is no push-notification service and no device token.
• Widgets, Apple Watch, CarPlay and Android Auto read the same data on the device.
• Camera and photos. Used only when you scan a mosque board or a pairing code. A board photo is kept in memory while you review it and then dropped.
• Microphone. Used only while the Follow along screen is open, to recognise Quran recitation on the device (see below). The audio is never recorded, stored or sent.
• Prayer focus (if you turn it on) uses the phone's Screen Time (iPhone) or usage access (Android) to pause the apps you pick. The list of apps stays on the device.
• Downloads. Quran packs, recitations and the recognition pack you download are stored on the device.

When the app goes online

Each of these sends a normal internet request, so the receiving server sees your IP address and the address of the file or service asked for. Apart from what is listed, nothing about you is sent.

Find mosques nearby

The phone rounds its position to three decimal places (about 100 m) before sending it. Our server asks Google Places (from the server, with our key, so Google does not see your IP address) or, as a fallback, the OpenStreetMap Overpass service. Our server keeps answers in memory for up to 7 days (Google) or 1 day (OpenStreetMap), keyed by the rounded point, so the next search nearby is answered from the cache. The cache is not linked to you and is lost on every restart. To limit abuse, the server counts requests per IP address per day, using a shortened one-way hash of the address, in memory only.

Mosque network

If you choose to share a mosque's times with other Moazzin users (“Update for everyone”, confirming a change, “Still right”, or reporting a problem), the app asks you once and then sends it to our server.

• What is sent: the mosque, the change or answer you chose, whether you typed the times or read them from a scanned board (never the photo), a short note if you write one in a report, and a contributor id. The contributor id is a random key made on your phone that signs each request. It is not your name, an account, a phone number or a device identifier.
• The “near” flag. Changes and answers also carry near: true or false: whether your phone was within about 150 m of that mosque at some point in the last 2 hours. The phone works this out itself, from positions it already had for its own features (switching places, finding mosques) and from Silent at my mosque noticing you arrive. It is approximate and comes from your location, but it is only a yes or no: no coordinates, place or time of a visit are sent. It is sent only when you share, and only gives your change more weight. We store it with that change under the random contributor id, not linked to your name, account or device.
• What we keep: the changes and answers under the contributor id. Shared times are public under the ODbL. To limit abuse our server counts requests per network using a daily-salted one-way hash of part of your IP address, kept for 10 days; it doesn't store the address itself.
• Deleting: More › Your data › Mosque network › “Delete my contributor id” erases the key on our server and on your phone. Past changes stay, linked to nothing. You can also stop sharing there at any time.

Syncing your devices

• Local sync (any devices on the same Wi-Fi): after you pair two devices with a QR code, they exchange your data directly and encrypted. It never passes through our server. Each paired device's key is kept in the system keychain or keystore.
• iCloud (Apple devices on the same Apple ID, if you turn it on): your data is stored in your own private iCloud database, under Apple's terms and privacy policy. We cannot read it. Apple wakes the app with a silent notification when another device changes something; the app never sees or sends a push token.
• Location permissions, geofencing, Prayer focus, downloads and your Supporter purchase never sync.

Backups

• On Android, the system may back up the app's settings file to your Google account (Android Auto Backup) and copy it to a new phone. Downloads and alarm state are excluded.
• On Apple devices, the app's data is included in your device or iCloud backup under Apple's settings.
• A backup file you export from More › Backup is yours. We never receive it.

Links and sharing

• Shared mosque links (moazzin.com/m/#…) carry the mosque's details after the #, which browsers never send to a server. Opening one sends us only the page request.
• Timetable, store and website links open in your browser and are covered by that site's policy.

Feedback by email

“Send feedback” opens your own mail app with a message to [email protected]. You see the whole message first and can remove any line (app version, system, language, calculation method, and, for wrong times, your city, primary mosque and today's times). Moazzin sends nothing itself. We receive what you send, including your email address, and use it only to reply and fix problems.

Scanning a mosque board

The board scan reads jama'at times from a photo so you don't have to type them. It is optional and asks your permission once before the first scan.

• What is sent: the photo (a JPEG of at most 1600 pixels) and a random 20-character code created on your device. No location, name or account. The details a camera stores inside a photo file (such as where and when it was taken, or the phone model) are removed on your device and again on our server, so they never reach the AI model.
• Our server passes the photo to Ollama Cloud and returns the times. It does not store or log the photo. It logs only the result status, how long it took, which models read it and their token counts. The random code and your IP address are hashed and counted in memory to apply a daily limit (10 scans per code), and the counts are cleared every day.
• Ollama Cloud. The photo is read by an open AI model (Gemma) run by Ollama (Ollama, Inc., United States) through its cloud API at ollama.com. Our server sends the photo turned upright, sometimes enlarged, together with two overlapping halves of the same photo, so small digits can be read. If that reading looks uncertain, the model reads it again, and a time counts as checked only when both readings agree; so each photo is read one to four times (usually once). Ollama says it processes prompts and responses only to answer the request, does not store or log them and never trains on them. It runs models with partners, which it calls “model inference providers” and does not name; it says it requires them not to log, keep or train on the data. Ollama hosts mainly in the United States and may route requests to Europe or Singapore. See Ollama's privacy policy and Ollama Cloud.
• Please photograph only the board. Keep people, faces and anything personal out of the frame.
• The times are read by AI and can be wrong. You always check them before they are saved.

If you don't want a photo to leave your device, don't use the scan; you can type the times instead.

Microphone (Follow along)

Follow along listens to Quran being recited nearby, or to your own recitation for hifz practice, and shows where it is in the Quran. It is optional, and the phone asks for the microphone the first time.

• Only while the screen is open. The microphone is used only while the Follow along screen is open. It stops when you leave the screen, lock the phone, take a call or switch apps. It never listens in the background.
• On the device. A speech model on your device turns the sound into Arabic text, a few seconds at a time, and the app matches it to the Quran text it already has. The audio is held in memory for those few seconds only. It is never recorded to a file, never stored and never sent anywhere, to us or anyone else.
• The recognition pack. The speech model is a one-time download from our server, like the Quran packs: a plain request for the file, with nothing about you in it. After that, Follow along works offline. You can delete it in Settings, under Storage.
• Hifz marks. In hifz practice the app may mark words it thinks were skipped or different. These are shown on the screen and dropped when you finish, unless you choose to save them; saved marks stay on your device only.

The website (moazzin.com)

• No analytics, no ads and no third-party requests. Pages load nothing from other sites.
• Two cookies only (below): mz_place for everyone, and a sign-in cookie for mosque admins and scholars. Both are strictly functional, so there is no cookie banner.
• mz_place holds the page of the city you last opened (for example /pk/karachi), not your location or coordinates. Purpose: open your city directly when you visit moazzin.com. First-party, kept for 1 year, never shared. Your browser sends it to our server with each request so the server can redirect the home page; we don't log or store it. To clear it, choose “Forget” on the home page or clear cookies in your browser settings.
• Your choices (Asr, Isha, language), up to six recent cities and whether you closed the “Get the app” bar are kept in your browser's local storage. They never leave your device; clearing your browser's site data removes them.
• A small offline helper (service worker) keeps the offline page and the last city page you opened in your browser's cache.
• “Use my location” runs in your browser and only picks the nearest city from a list in the page. Your position is not sent to us.
• Mosque pages show the times a mosque publishes, not who published them.

Mosque admins

People who publish a mosque's times sign in on this website at /admin. They join only by invitation and sign in with a passkey: no email address, phone number or password is asked for. For them we keep:

• the name the inviter typed (a first name or nickname is fine), the role and the mosque or city it covers, and who invited them;
• for each device: the passkey's public key and its counter (your fingerprint or face never leaves your device), a device type such as “iPhone” worked out from the browser (the browser string itself is not kept), when it was added and last used;
• a sign-in cookie (mz_admin, only on /admin, HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite=Strict, 30 days) and a hashed copy of its token;
• a history of what was done (for example “published Isha 8:15 PM”), with the name of who did it, plus drafts and invitations (the invitee's name, stored with a hashed one-time token that expires after 7 days);
• request counts per IP address, hashed and in memory, to slow down guessing.

When you paste a short map link to set a pin, our server follows that link (for example on maps.app.goo.gl) to read the coordinates; the map service sees our server, not you. The pin preview is drawn from OpenStreetMap tiles fetched by our server. “Use my location” on the pin form uses your browser's location only to fill in the pin.

When an admin is removed, their sign-in sessions and passkeys are deleted at once and the account is marked as removed. Their name stays in that mosque's history so committees can see who changed what. You can ask us to replace your name in the history with “former admin”, unless we need it to deal with a complaint or a legal duty. Admins must be 18 or older; see the mosque guidelines.

Scholars (Find a scholar)

Ulama can list themselves in the app's Find a scholar directory. They sign in on this website (/admin/scholars) with a passkey, like mosque admins: no email address, phone number or password is asked for, and we never email them. For a scholar we keep:

• the profile they write: name, title, institution, sanad line, maslak, fiqh, languages, services, areas served, city, the “women only” note, an optional photo (looked at by a reviewer before it is shown), a linked mosque, and whether they want a public web page;
• the contact methods they add (WhatsApp, phone, email, website), each with an optional short note and an on/off switch;
• their verification: sanad or certificate files uploaded for review, vouches given for them, a call window they asked for, the reviewers' decisions and reason categories, and reports about the listing (counts and reasons, never who sent them);
• their two consents, each with the date and the policy version it was given under (now 2026-10-05), and when it was withdrawn;
• the account details listed under Mosque admins: passkeys, device type, the sign-in cookie and a history of what was done.

What is public, and what never is

• In the app, only with the first consent and only once verified: the profile, and which contact methods are switched on with their notes, never their values. A contact value (a number, an address, a site) is sent to a phone only when someone taps “Show” on that profile, only with the second consent, and is not kept on the phone beyond the open screen. Each network can reveal at most 40 contacts a day.
• On the web: the scholar's page moazzin.com/u/<id> and city pages such as “Ulama in Karachi”, only when the scholar also switches on “Show my profile on moazzin.com”. These pages show the profile but never a contact value or note; they say “Open in Moazzin to contact”. Search engines are told when such a page appears, changes or goes away (IndexNow sends the page address only).
• Never public: contact values on the web, sanad files, the call window, vouch links, reports and who sent them, reviewers' notes, consent records and the account itself.

Legal basis: consent

Listing a scholar, and showing their contact methods, rests on their consent (India's DPDP Act, section 6; GDPR Article 6(1)(a)). They give it with two separate boxes, unticked by default, when they apply or accept an invite, or later on their scholar pages: “List my profile publicly in Moazzin and on moazzin.com/u/<id>” and “Show each contact method I add, revealed only when someone taps”. Neither is needed to create the account. Without the first, a profile is never listed in the app or on the web and can't be sent for review; without the second, no contact method is shown or revealed. When what scholars agree to changes, the version changes and every profile is taken off until its scholar agrees again. Reviewing their evidence is part of the service they ask for when they apply. See the scholar guidelines.

Withdrawing, pausing and deleting

• Withdraw either consent at any time under Visibility: without the first, the profile leaves the app and the web at once; without the second, every contact method is hidden at once.
• Pause the listing at any time, and resume it later; nothing is deleted.
• Delete my account and data (under Visibility, confirmed by typing DELETE) removes at once the profile, its public page and its place on city pages, the photo, sanad files, vouches and reports about the scholar, reviewers' decline votes, passkeys, sign-in sessions, roles and the account. The app's directory drops the profile the next time it refreshes. The confirmation is shown on screen, with the date, the time and a short reference; we send no email.

How long scholar data is kept

• Sanad and certificate files: until a reviewer decides, and in any case at most 30 days after upload.
• The profile, contact methods and consent records: while the account exists; deleted immediately when the scholar deletes it.
• The audit log, after a deletion, keeps one line, “a scholar deleted their account”, with the profile id, the time and the reference, and no name or contact details. Older lines about the profile keep only what was done, when, and which reviewer did it: their details (file names, call windows, reviewers' notes) are erased, lines the scholar wrote name a “Deleted scholar”, and invites that named them no longer do. The profile id is usually made from the name (for example sadia-farooq); we keep that one line as the record that the deletion was done, and remove it on request unless we need it for a complaint or a legal duty.
• Vouches the scholar gave other scholars stay part of those scholars' verification, without the name.

Scholars must be 18 or older.

Our server and its logs

Our server and its database run on Railway (Railway Corporation, United States) in its Singapore region. Our own code logs, for each request, only the method, the path (never the query string) and the status, with one-time invite codes cut out. The nearby search adds the source, cache hit and time; the scan adds status, time, the models used and their token counts; errors add the path and the technical error.

The server for AI assistants (/mcp) is logged the same way: method, path and status, never what was asked. Coordinates sent to it are rounded to about 1 km before use, and requests are counted per network, in memory under a one-way hash, to limit abuse.

Railway's own platform also records request logs, which include your IP address, the address requested and your browser or app identifier. These are kept for 30 days and then deleted. We use them only to keep the service running and to deal with abuse. See Railway's privacy policy.

Who receives data

• Railway hosts our server and database (service provider).
• Ollama reads board photos you choose to scan (see above).
• Google: Places search from our server (rounded point only); on Android, the Google Maps map and the phone's geocoder; Android backups and Google Play purchases, under Google's own policies.
• Apple: Apple Maps, the geocoder, iCloud, device backups and App Store purchases, under Apple's own policies.
• OpenStreetMap services: the Overpass API (rounded point, from our server) and map tiles for the admin pin preview (from our server).
• Islamic Network / AlQuran.cloud, jsDelivr and GitHub serve Quran audio and texts you choose to play or download.
• Authorities, only where the law requires it and after checking the request is lawful.

Apple's and Google's own services (maps, geocoding, iCloud, backups, stores) act under their own privacy policies, which also apply to you as their user.

How long data is kept

Why we may use it (legal bases)

• India (DPDP Act 2023): data you give us voluntarily for a specific purpose (a search, a scan, an email, an admin account) is used for that purpose only; where we ask for consent, as for the board scan and for listing a scholar and showing their contact methods, you can withdraw it at any time.
• EU and UK GDPR: to provide what you asked for (searches, scans, packs, the admin service); our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and working (logs, rate limits); your consent for the board scan and for listing scholars and showing their contact methods; and legal obligations.

Countries data goes to

Our server is in Singapore. Board photos go to Ollama, mainly in the United States and sometimes in Europe or Singapore. Ollama, Google, Apple, Railway, jsDelivr and GitHub may process requests in the United States and other countries. For the board scan, we tell you before the first scan and ask for your agreement. For other providers we rely on their standard safeguards (such as standard contractual clauses) where the law requires them.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you can ask us to tell you what personal data we hold about you, correct it, delete it, stop or limit using it, give you a copy, or withdraw your consent. Under India's DPDP Act you can also nominate someone to act for you if you die or cannot act. Most of your data is only on your device, so we usually hold nothing that can be linked to you; mosque admins, scholars and people who emailed us are the exception. Scholars can withdraw consent and delete their account themselves, at once, on their scholar pages. See how to delete your data.

Write to [email protected]. We reply within 30 days (sooner where the law requires). We may ask you to confirm the request comes from you, for example from the same email address or admin sign-in. If you are unhappy with our answer you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India, your EU data protection authority, the UK Information Commissioner's Office, or your state authority in the US.

Children

Moazzin is for everyone, including children, and it has no accounts, ads or tracking. We don't knowingly collect personal data from children. Children should ask a parent before using the board scan or emailing us. Mosque admins and scholars must be 18 or older. If you think a child has sent us personal data, write to us and we will delete it.

Security

All connections use HTTPS. Admin sign-in uses passkeys; tokens are stored only as hashes. Local sync is end-to-end encrypted between your devices. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your personal data, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

California and other US states

We do not sell or “share” personal information, do not use it for targeted advertising or profiling, and do not use sensitive information beyond providing the feature you asked for. In the last 12 months we have handled only the categories described above (IP addresses and request details, approximate location for nearby searches, photos you scan, admin and scholar names, profiles and device details, and emails you send). You have the rights described above and will not be treated differently for using them.

Changes

When this policy changes we update this page and its date. If a change matters, for example a new kind of data going online, the app will tell you before it happens.

Contact and grievances

Hassan Ansari, Moazzin, India. Email [email protected]. He is also the grievance officer for India's IT Rules 2021 and the DPDP Act; see how grievances are handled.