Verse Finder and Verse Memorizer
Verse Finder finds a Bible verse from a few words you remember. Verse Memorizer helps you learn verses by heart, and finds them the same way, through the same server. Neither app has accounts, advertising or tracking. This page covers Verse Finder on iPhone, iPad and Android, and Verse Memorizer on iPhone and iPad: what leaves your device, who receives it, and how long it is kept. Most of it applies to both apps. Where something applies to only one of them, it names that app, and where the iPhone and Android apps differ, it says so.
The words you type go to the Verse Finder server, which RedWord runs and both apps use. To work out which passage you mean, the server uses third-party services, and sends them those words, with whether to search only the Old or the New Testament when you choose one, and the verses already on your screen when you ask for more. Nothing else goes to them: not your device key, not your network address, nothing about you. Nothing leaves your phone until you agree to this in the app, which asks when you first open it. Each app asks for itself.
Their terms let those services use the words only to answer the search, to guard their own service against abuse, and to meet legal obligations.
In Verse Memorizer, a reference you type out in full, such as John 14:6, is read on your phone and is not sent as a search. When Verse Memorizer needs a verse's text in a translation the server fetches (When a verse is shown), it sends that verse's reference, not any words of yours, as the search.
A device key. Once you agree, the app creates a key in your phone's secure hardware and registers it with the Verse Finder server, so the server can confirm that each request comes from a genuine copy of the app. Each app makes a key of its own. On iPhone and iPad the key is made with Apple's App Attest, and on Android with Android's key attestation. The key has two halves. The private half signs each request and never leaves your phone's secure hardware. The public half can only check those signatures: the app sends it to the server when the key is registered, and each request after that carries the key's identifier, a fingerprint of the public half, so the server knows which one to check with. The key is random and not connected to your name, your Apple ID, your Google account or any account.
What registering the key shows. To prove the key is genuine, its public half comes with certificates that the server checks once, when the key is registered, and does not keep.
Neither includes your phone number, your Apple ID or Google account, or your phone's serial number or IMEI.
Your network address. Every request over the internet carries one. The server uses it, with the key's identifier, to stop any one source from overwhelming the service.
Timings. Each search also reports how long the app's earlier requests took, which the server uses to keep the service fast.
A share contains the reference, meaning the book, chapter and verse or range, and a link. It leaves out the verse text and the words the person used to find the verse. The link contains the same reference, plus a short code for the translation. Opening it sends those values to redword.org as part of the web address.
If the recipient has Verse Finder installed, opening the link opens the app. Otherwise, the page offers the App Store, and for Android the steps to join the app's test. After installing, the recipient can return to the same link and open it again. The app puts the reference into its normal search. After the recipient agrees in the app, the reference is sent as the lookup query and the selected translation is used to fetch the text. The original search is never in the link or the recipient's lookup.
When both apps are on your phone, Verse Finder's Memorize button hands a verse to Verse Memorizer, and Verse Memorizer's Read more button hands one to Verse Finder. What passes is the reference and the code of the translation, the same two things a shared link carries, and it passes on your phone without being sent anywhere. It never includes the verse text or the words you searched.
In Verse Memorizer, Read more shows even when Verse Finder is not on your phone. Then it opens the link a share carries (Shared verses) in your browser. That sends the reference and the code of the translation to redword.org as part of the web address, and the page there offers Verse Finder on the App Store.
Verse Finder looks a verse it receives up the way it looks up a shared verse (Shared verses). Verse Memorizer puts a verse it receives on your list and fetches its text, which for some translations means sending its reference as a search first (When you search). Either way, nothing is sent until you have agreed in the app that receives it.
The verse text comes from these Bible text services. None of them receives the words you searched for. Each is asked for the passage being shown, and receives nothing more than this list says:
Your searches are kept in two places:
After 30 days the Verse Finder server no longer has your searches, unless the law requires us to keep them longer. The list on your phone stays until you clear it. The AI services that work out which passage you mean also receive the words of each search, and keep them only under their own terms (When you search).
Your list of verses. Verse Memorizer keeps the verses you add on your phone, as a list of references, each with the code of the translation you learn it in and the step of the typing practice you are on, so the verse opens on that step again. A verse you add by hand, typing or pasting its reference and its words, is kept with those words, so you can practice it with no connection, and the list labels it Offline. Those words stay on your phone and are never sent. Apart from them, the list holds no verse text, and it holds no searches and nothing about which words you typed right or missed. It is not sent to the Verse Finder server. Export hands the references and their translations to your phone's share sheet as plain text, without the words of any verse, and they go only where you choose to send them. Remove from my verses takes a verse off the list, and deleting the app removes the whole list.
Recordings. The first time you tap Record, Verse Memorizer asks to use your microphone. What you record is kept in the app's memory so you can play it back against the verse, and is gone once you leave that verse, record again, or the app is closed. The app never saves a recording to your phone's storage and never sends one anywhere. You can turn the microphone off for the app in your phone's settings at any time, and everything else in the app still works.
Our servers are run for us by a cloud provider, which stores this data on our behalf. Beyond that, we share data only with the services this page describes, only as it describes, and only with services whose own terms protect it at least as well as this policy does.
Our servers are in the United States, and the services they use are based there too, so what you send is processed in the United States.
Everything the apps send, and everything the server passes on to the services above, travels encrypted. Only RedWord administers the Verse Finder server.
The support form at support.redword.org, and the feedback form on redword.org that sends to it, keep what you send so we can answer you and improve the apps: your message, your email address if you give one, which product it is about, the browser and operating system you used, the time, and a random identifier for your visit. That identifier lives in a cookie on support.redword.org for 30 days and holds nothing else. It lets messages from one visit be read together even when no email is given. The form sets no other cookies, and none from anyone else.
Your network address is not stored with your message. The support server's request log records it, as it does for every request, and keeps it for at most 30 days.
A copy of each message is emailed to our support inbox, so we can read it the day it arrives. It is sent through an email delivery service and forwarded to our inbox.
Support messages, and the emailed copies, are deleted after 12 months. Your email address is used only to reply to you. Nothing you send through the form is shared with anyone else.
You can decline in each app, and nothing is sent until you agree in that app. To withdraw your agreement later, delete the app, or on Android, clear its storage in Android's settings; nothing more is sent after that. You can clear Verse Finder's search history and remove verses from Verse Memorizer's list at any time, and deleting an app removes everything it stored on your phone.
Because neither app knows who you are, we cannot look your data up by name. Server logs are deleted after 30 days anyway, unless the law requires us to keep them longer. To have them deleted sooner, send the approximate date and time of your searches through the support form, and we will delete the logs covering that time within 15 days.
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what data we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to object to how we use it, and to get a copy of it. Because neither app knows who you are, we can find your data only by when you used the app: ask through the support form, with the approximate dates and times, and we will answer within one month.
We use your data for these reasons:
If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, tell us through the support form, and we will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days. You can also complain to a data protection authority, which in the United Kingdom is the Information Commissioner's Office, ico.org.uk.
If we turn down a request, you can appeal through the support form. We answer an appeal within 60 days and explain our decision, and if we still turn it down, we tell you how to complain to your state's attorney general; in Connecticut, that is the Office of the Attorney General, portal.ct.gov/ag.
Neither app is directed at children under 13, and neither knowingly collects their information.
If this policy changes, this page will be updated and its effective date changed.