Vella Privacy Policy

1. Information you provide

You may provide account details such as your email address, profile name, social handle, bio, language, onboarding preferences, goals, reminder choices, and support messages.

When you use Vella, you may also create private notes and favorites, journey progress, group activity, and public Faith Feed content such as posts, comments, images, likes, follows, mentions, reports, and blocks.

2. Information processed automatically

We process limited technical and service information needed to operate Vella, such as a device identifier for guest features, app version, language, request and error information, notification tokens, and basic interaction records.

Apple and Google process payments. Vella receives subscription status, product identifiers, transaction references, and receipt data needed to validate access, but does not receive your full card number.

3. How we use information

We use information only for legitimate product and safety purposes, including to:

• provide authentication, synchronization, daily verses, search, notes, journeys, groups, and community features;
• personalize your starting journey and language experience;
• validate subscriptions and restore purchases;
• deliver notifications you request;
• moderate public content, investigate reports, prevent abuse, and secure the service;
• respond to support requests and improve reliability.

4. AI and service providers

OpenAI processes the text you submit in a natural-language Scripture search to expand it into useful search terms. OpenAI may also help draft reflection prompts and, before publication, process the text of public Faith Feed posts and comments and images you select for a Feed post to support safety moderation. We send only the information reasonably needed for each task. Vella does not intentionally save search text as an in-app search history, although limited security or provider logs may be retained under the applicable agreements and policies. AI-drafted commentary or reflection may be inaccurate. Displayed Scripture always comes from an approved edition stored in Vella’s corpus and is never written or translated by AI; available editions may vary by language.

Our principal processors are Supabase for authentication, database, and file storage; Vercel for website and API hosting; OpenAI for the AI processing described above; Expo for app updates, push-notification infrastructure, and related installation or service diagnostics; and Apple and Google for app distribution, store billing, and notification delivery, including Apple Push Notification service and Firebase Cloud Messaging. They process data needed to provide their services under our agreements, configurations, and their applicable legal terms. We do not sell personal information or use private devotional content for targeted advertising.

5. Sharing, retention, and security

We share information with service providers, app stores, authorities when legally required, or as part of a business transaction subject to appropriate safeguards. Public Faith Feed content is visible to other users according to the feature design.

Retention depends on the purpose of the data, whether your account remains active, legal and financial recordkeeping duties, dispute and fraud-prevention needs, security requirements, and backup cycles. Account, profile, private devotional, journey, and community data is generally kept while your account is active and the data is needed to provide Vella. Content you delete and data removed with account deletion is deleted from active systems, subject to limited billing, transaction, audit, fraud-prevention, security, legal, and backup records that may remain only as required or permitted. Backup copies persist only until they are overwritten or isolated through scheduled backup rotation. Processors may retain limited copies under our instructions, agreements, and applicable law.

We use technical and organizational safeguards, but no online system can guarantee absolute security.

6. Your choices and rights

You can update preferences, disable notifications, manage private notes and favorites, block users, cancel a subscription through your store, and delete your account in the app. Depending on where you live, you may also have rights to access, correct, export, restrict, object to, or delete personal information.

To make a privacy request, email privacy@vella.one. We may verify your identity before completing a request. You may also have the right to contact your local data-protection authority.

7. Age eligibility, international use, and changes

Vella is intended only for users who are at least 18 years old, or the legal age of majority where they live if that age is higher. We do not knowingly offer accounts to anyone who does not meet this requirement. If you believe an underage person has provided personal information, contact privacy@vella.one so we can investigate and delete it as appropriate.

Information may be processed in countries other than yours with appropriate safeguards where required. We may update this policy as Vella evolves; material changes will be communicated through the service or another reasonable channel.

8. Contact

For privacy questions or requests, contact privacy@vella.one. For general product support, contact support@vella.one.