The short version: prayer times, qibla, and location checks are computed on your device — your location is not sent to our servers for them. The microphone is off unless you explicitly turn on Masjid Mode or record an athan, and audio leaves your phone only while you are actively broadcasting. There are no accounts, no ads, no tracking, and nothing is ever sold. The app is free, for everyone.
1. Location — used on your device, not sent to us
Live Athan uses your location for three things, and all three are computed on the phone itself:
- Prayer times. The app calculates prayer times with precise astronomy directly on your device. No account, no server — it works even offline and in flight. Your coordinates are not transmitted to any server for this.
- Qibla direction. The compass calculation also happens entirely on the device.
- The masjid check for Masjid Mode. If you enable Masjid Mode (broadcasting), the app checks — on the device — whether you are inside a masjid you have chosen, during a prayer window. That check never leaves your phone. If you never enable Masjid Mode, background location is not requested at all.
2. Microphone — only with your explicit consent
Your phone is never "always listening." The microphone can be used by Live Athan in exactly two situations, both of which you start yourself:
- Masjid Mode (broadcasting). If you turn it on, the microphone can activate only when two things are both true: you are inside a masjid you have chosen, and it is a prayer window. During the detection phase, audio is analyzed entirely on the device to recognize the call to prayer — nothing is transmitted or stored during detection. Audio is sent to our relay server only while an active broadcast is running, and a visible indicator shows the broadcast state the whole time.
- Record Athan. If you record your own athan, the recording is kept on your device. It is only uploaded if you explicitly choose to share it.
Broadcast audio is public by nature. The point of broadcasting is that others can listen. While you broadcast, the audio is relayed live to listeners. When the broadcast ends, transmission stops.
3. Questions you ask the Companion
When you ask the Companion a question about Islam, the text of your question is sent to our backend so it can be answered from the recorded teachings of real scholars, with sources. These conversations are kept under a random, anonymous identifier (see below) so the Companion can keep context — they are never joined to your name, email, or any account, because the app has none.
4. The anonymous identifier
Live Athan has no accounts and no sign-up. To make features like the Companion work, the app generates one random identifier when it is first installed. It is a random string — it contains no personal information and is never linked to your name, email, contacts, or location. We cannot use it to identify you, and we do not try.
5. What we do NOT do
- No advertising — the app contains no ads and no advertising SDKs.
- No sale or sharing of data with data brokers or advertisers. Ever.
- No tracking across other apps or websites.
- No third-party analytics or crash-reporting SDKs.
- No accounts, no passwords, no contact lists, no personal profiles.
The current version of the app also does not collect any athan-location signals. If an anonymous, aggregated signal of this kind is ever introduced (to help map where communities lack a nearby masjid), it will carry no identity, and you will be able to opt out.
6. Optional diagnostics — off by default
The app can send an anonymous health report (device model, iOS version, and which internal services are healthy) to help us catch bugs across many devices. This is off by default, contains no identifier and no personal data, and only runs if you turn it on in Settings.
7. Qardon opens a separate site
The Qardon features open qardon.org inside the app. Anything you do there is governed by qardon.org's own privacy policy, not this one. The Live Athan app itself collects no financial information.
8. Children
Live Athan does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children. There are no accounts and no profiles to create.
9. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, we will update this page and the date at the top. Because the app collects so little, we expect changes to be rare.
10. Contact
Questions about privacy? Email awwadalhaj@gmail.com — a real person reads it.