WatchmanWatchman privacy policy
Who we are
Watchman is an app for keeping daily spiritual practices and sharing a weekly review with up to three coaches you choose. It is run by Israel Oladosu, an individual based in England, who decides how your personal data is used. In data protection law, that makes him the controller. In this policy, "we" means Israel and "you" means anyone who uses Watchman, whether as a member, a coach or both.
Watchman is for people aged 18 and over. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we will delete it.
For anything about your data, email [email protected]. We reply within one month, and usually much sooner.
What we collect
We collect only what Watchman needs to work. Most of it you type in yourself.
| What | Examples | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Account details | Your name, email address, password (stored only as a secure hash), time zone, whether you're a member, a coach or both | You, when you sign up. If you sign in with Apple or Google, they send us your name and email address (Apple may send a private relay address instead) |
| Your faith data | Your practices, daily check-ins and any notes, weekly reviews and reflections, messages with your coaches, practice suggestions | You and your coaches, as you use the app |
| Coaching links | Invite codes, which coaches you're linked to and since when | You and your coaches |
| Your consent | That you agreed to us storing your faith data, when, and which version of this policy you saw | The app, when you agree |
| Device details | A push notification token for each phone (when we turn on push notifications), the app version and platform | Your phone |
| Error reports | When the app crashes or something goes wrong: the error, the screen, the app version and an anonymous ID (when we turn on error reporting) | Your phone. Reports never include your name, email address, practices, reflections or messages |
| Support emails | Anything you write to [email protected] | You |
Your faith data is special. Your practices, reflections and messages say something about your religious beliefs. UK data protection law treats religious belief as "special category" data that needs extra protection. We store it only with your explicit consent, which you give in the app before any of it is saved.
We don't use your contacts, location, photos, camera or microphone. We don't use advertising IDs or tracking.
Why we use it, and the law we rely on
We use your data only to run Watchman for you and the coaches you choose.
| What we do | Data used | Lawful basis (UK GDPR) |
|---|---|---|
| Create and run your account, sign you in, send sign-in and password emails | Account details | Contract: we need it to provide the app you asked for (Article 6(1)(b)) |
| Store your practices, check-ins, reviews and messages, and show them to you and your coaches | Faith data | Contract (Article 6(1)(b)), and your explicit consent for special category data (Article 9(2)(a)) |
| Send notifications about messages, reviews and suggestions | Device details, and short text about the event | Contract (Article 6(1)(b)), and your explicit consent where the text is faith data |
| Keep a record that you consented | Your consent | Legal obligation: we must be able to show consent was given (Articles 6(1)(c) and 7(1)) |
| Keep Watchman secure and working: encrypted backups, fixing errors, answering support emails | All of the above, as needed | Legitimate interests: keeping the service safe and reliable (Article 6(1)(f)); explicit consent for faith data in backups |
We don't use your data for advertising or profiling, and we don't make automated decisions about you.
Who can see your data
- You see everything in your account.
- Your coaches see your practices, your check-ins as you make them, and your weekly reviews once you submit them, never drafts. Each coach sees only their own conversations with you, not your conversations with your other coaches. When a link ends, whether you remove a coach or they step down, that coach loses access to everything at once, past weeks included, and your conversations with them are deleted.
- If you're a coach, the members you coach see your name and the messages and suggestions you send them.
- Israel, as the person who runs Watchman, can technically reach the database. He looks at personal data only when he needs to: to fix a problem, answer your support request, or meet a legal obligation.
- Our service providers store or handle data for us under contract, and only on our instructions (next section).
The database itself enforces these rules, so a coach can never read data for someone they're not linked to.
What we never do: we don't sell or rent your data, share it with advertisers, show ads, or use it to train AI models. We'd share data with a public authority only where the law requires it.
When a coach is looking at your practices, reviews or messages, Watchman blocks screenshots and screen recordings where their phone allows it. But nothing can stop someone photographing a screen with another device, and what your coaches do with what they've seen is up to them. So choose coaches you trust.
Our service providers and where your data is
Your account and faith data live in a database in London. A few providers handle some data for us, each under a contract that limits them to our instructions.
| Provider | What they do for us | What they handle | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in and server functions | Everything in your account | London (UK). Supabase's US and Singapore teams can reach it for support |
| Resend | Sends sign-in, confirmation and password emails | Your email address and the email (a link only, no faith data) | Sent from Ireland; logs kept in the US |
| Brevo | Standby for the emails above, used only if Resend is down | As Resend | EU |
| GitHub | Holds our daily backups for 30 days | A full copy of the database, encrypted with a key only Israel holds, so GitHub can't read it | US |
| Cloudflare | Runs keepthewatch.co.uk and forwards support@ emails to Israel | Website visits (IP address, briefly, for security); support emails, passed through without being stored | Global network |
| Apple and Google | "Sign in with Apple" and "Sign in with Google", if you use them | Your sign-in with them, under their own privacy policies | Their own |
| Expo and Apple, when we turn on push notifications | Deliver notifications to your phone | Your device's push token and the notification text, which is not stored after delivery | US |
| Sentry, when we turn on error reporting | Error and crash reports | The error, the screen, the app version and an anonymous ID; never names, emails or faith data | EU (Frankfurt) |
Transfers outside the UK. Where a provider handles data outside the UK, or its staff can reach it from abroad, the transfer is protected by the UK's approved safeguards. These are the UK addendum to the standard contractual clauses in each provider's data processing terms, or, for US providers certified under it, the UK–US data bridge. You can ask us for details of any of them.
How long we keep it, and deleting your account
We keep your data while you have an account. You can delete your account at any time in the app: go to You, then Account, then Delete account. You can also email [email protected] and we'll do it for you.
When you delete your account, your account details and faith data are deleted from the live database straight away. That includes your practices, check-ins, reviews, messages and coaching links. Your coaches lose access at the same moment.
| What | How long it stays |
|---|---|
| Your account and faith data | Until you delete them, or your account |
| Encrypted backups | Up to 30 days, then the backup is deleted. We never restore a deleted account from a backup unless you ask us to |
| A practice or message you delete | A practice is removed straight away. A message's text is removed straight away, and a "Message deleted" marker stays in its place in the conversation. Either way, a note that it was deleted stays for up to 30 days so your other phones catch up, then it's cleared |
| Notifications sent to you | Up to 30 days |
| Server and email logs | As long as each provider keeps them, usually a few days |
| Your consent record | Deleted with your account |
| Support emails | 12 months after the conversation ends |
On your phone, Watchman keeps a copy of your data so it works offline. Deleting your account or the app removes it, and so does signing in to a different account on that phone (the app warns you first).
How we keep it safe
- Data is encrypted in transit between your phone and our servers, and at rest in the database.
- Access rules live in the database itself, and every rule has an automated test that runs before each change goes live.
- Daily backups are encrypted as soon as they're made, before they're stored anywhere. The key to open them is kept offline in a password manager.
- Every account we use to run Watchman has two-factor sign-in, and no secret is ever stored in our code.
- Error reports are scrubbed of names, email addresses, practices, reflections and messages before they leave your phone.
- Sign-in emails contain a link only, with no tracking, so the link goes straight to us.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach puts your data at risk, we'll tell the Information Commissioner's Office within 72 hours where the law requires it, and tell you directly if the risk to you is high.
Your rights
You have the right to:
- get a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
- correct anything that's wrong (most of it you can edit in the app);
- delete your data, which you can do yourself by deleting your account;
- take your data with you in a common format;
- restrict or object to how we use it in some cases;
- withdraw your consent at any time.
To use any of these rights, email [email protected]. It's free, and we'll reply within one month. We may ask you to confirm it's you, for example by writing from the email address on your account.
Withdrawing consent. Watchman can't work without storing your faith data, so withdrawing consent means we can't store any more of it. We'll help you delete your account and everything in it. Withdrawing doesn't make what we did before unlawful.
Complaints. If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, please tell us first so we can put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.
Our website
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Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we'll update the date and version below. If a change affects how we use your faith data, we'll tell you in the app and ask for your consent again before it applies.
Version 1.0, last updated 26 October 2026.