Privacy policy

Introduction

Assalamualaikum. Global Advocacy for Blind and Low Vision Muslims (GABLVM) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and safeguard information when you visit our website, use the GABLVM app for iPhone, or open one of our short links at go.gablvm.org.

As an organization serving the blind and low vision community, we are especially mindful of creating transparent and accessible privacy practices.

Information We Collect

Information You Provide

  • Contact Information: When you use our contact form, you may provide your name and email address.
  • Feedback: Any comments or suggestions you submit to us.

Information Collected Automatically

  • Location Data: If you grant permission, we use your location to display accurate prayer times for your area. This data is processed in your browser and not stored on our servers.
  • Preferences: Your choices for Quran reciter, translation, and other settings are stored in cookies on your device.
  • Usage Information: Basic analytics about how visitors use our site to help us improve accessibility.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

  • Provide accurate prayer times based on your location.
  • Remember your preferences for the Quran Player (reciter, translation, playback settings).
  • Respond to your questions and feedback.
  • Improve our website and accessibility features.
  • Communicate important updates about GABLVM.

Third-Party Services

Our website uses the following third-party services:

  • Quran Foundation API: To provide Quran audio recitations and translations.
  • Aladhan API: To provide prayer times and Islamic calendar data.
  • OpenStreetMap Nominatim: To convert your coordinates to a city name for display.
  • Muslim Central, QuranicAudio, and way2quran: To stream some full-surah recitations, credited on the Quran pages. When you play one, your browser or the app requests the file from that host directly.
  • Cloudflare: To serve and protect our website, app services, and short links.

These services have their own privacy policies. We only share the minimum information necessary (such as your location coordinates for prayer times).

Cookies

We use cookies to:

  • Remember your Quran Player preferences (reciter, translation, surah).
  • Store your location preference for prayer times.
  • Remember if you have denied location permission.

These cookies are stored only on your device and help provide a better experience. You can clear cookies through your browser settings at any time.

The GABLVM App for iPhone

The app keeps almost everything on your iPhone. This is what stays on your phone:

  • Prayer Tracker: The prayers you mark, including Sunnah and night prayers, and any pause for menstruation or bleeding after childbirth. We never receive this.
  • Apple Health: If you turn on Suggest a pause from Apple Health, the app reads only your menstrual flow entries, only on your iPhone, and only to ask whether you want to pause or resume prayer reminders. It never pauses or resumes by itself, never writes to Apple Health, and never sends Health data anywhere. You can turn it off under Settings, Tracker, or in the Health app.
  • Settings and Content: Your settings, your place in the Quran and in the lessons, downloaded recitations, and the text of surahs you have read.
  • Alarms and Calendar: The Fajr alarm uses Apple's alarm feature on your iPhone. White day events are written to the calendar you choose and follow that calendar's own sync settings.
  • Diagnostic Log: A record of what the app did, used to fix problems. It stays on your iPhone unless you choose Share under Settings, About. Before the file leaves your phone the app removes personal details such as a city you typed, your direction to the Kaaba, and compass readings. It records no Health values. You can clear it on the same screen.
  • Backups: An iPhone backup, such as iCloud Backup, includes the app's data like any other app's, under Apple's backup terms.

This is what the app sends to us:

  • Location: Your coordinates, to find prayer times. Our server asks the Aladhan service for the times and may cache the answer briefly. We do not store your location or link it to you. If you type a city instead, Apple's location service turns it into coordinates first.
  • Notification Address: Only if you turn on prayer reminders or community event alerts. Apple gives the app an anonymous address for notifications. We keep it with your time zone, the app version, and which alerts you turned on. It contains no name, email, or location. Turning both alerts off removes it.
  • Content Requests: Requests for Quran audio and text, translations, commentary, lessons, duas, hadith, the names of Allah, and community events, from our own servers and the reciter hosts listed above. These include no name or location.

The app has no advertising, no analytics, and no tracking across other apps or websites. It never asks for your name or email.

Short Links (go.gablvm.org)

go.gablvm.org turns a long web address into a short one, for example go.gablvm.org/privacy. Anyone can open a short link. Only GABLVM staff and volunteers can create them, after signing in with a one-time code sent to their email.

  • When You Open a Short Link: The service records that the link was opened, the time, and the country the request came from. Only the country code is kept. Your IP address, device, and browser are not stored, and automated crawlers are not counted.
  • When Staff Create Links: The service keeps the email address they signed in with, the links and collections they created, and a history of changes to each link, so mistakes can be traced and undone.
  • Software: The service runs on Z, open source software from the University of Minnesota, on a server we operate. The source of our copy is linked in the footer of every page.

Data Security

We implement appropriate security measures to protect your information. Our website, app services, and short links use HTTPS encryption to secure data transmission. We do not sell, trade, or share your personal information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Your Rights

You have the right to:

  • Decline location permissions (you can enter your city manually instead).
  • Turn off Apple Health suggestions, prayer reminders, and event alerts in the app at any time.
  • Clear cookies and stored preferences at any time.
  • Request information about what data we have collected.
  • Request deletion of your personal information.
  • Contact us with privacy concerns.

Children's Privacy

Our website is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated date. When we build something new, such as the Apple Watch app we are planning, this policy will be updated to cover it before it reaches you.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or our practices, please contact us through our Contact Form.

Last Updated

September 27, 2026