Privacy

If you don't have an account

You can watch the globe and find gatherings without signing in. Nothing we keep is linked to you. To count visits, the website keeps a random number in your browser and records, for each visit: how many pages were opened, the page you arrived on, the website that linked to us (its domain only), the kind of device, and the country when it can be told. These records are kept for 13 months. The number changes when you sign in or out, so visits from before you sign in are never linked to your account.

While you are in a live gathering, the website or the iPhone app reports once a minute which display choices are showing (for example, how the lights look). These reports carry no identity and are only added up into daily totals.

When something goes wrong that the app (iPhone or Android) or the website can't fix by itself, it sends a short technical note so we can fix it: the app's globe has to slow down or the graphics chip reports an error, the sound doesn't start or stays silent, music won't load, or the website's globe has to draw less finely or loses its graphics. The note says what happened, with the device's model and system version and the app's version (the app), or the browser and system by name and version and the window's size (the website), and timings such as how long frames were taking or where the sound was going (the speaker, headphones and so on). It carries no identity, and we keep only the most recent few hundred.

If you have an account

We keep:

• Your email address, to sign you in and send the emails you ask for.
• Your name, shown with your kind words and as the host of your gatherings.
• Where your light resides: a point rounded to about 50 km, with the name of the nearest town, and your light's color.
• A password, only if you set one, stored as a one-way scrambled form we cannot read back.
• If you use Sign in with Apple: the identifier Apple gives us for you, and the email Apple shares (which may be Apple's private relay address).
• If you sign in with Google: the identifier Google gives us for you, your Google account's email, and its name if you haven't given one.
• The gatherings you host, with their titles and words, and the gatherings you subscribe to.
• Your meditation rooms: the room you own, with its name and sound choices and its members, the rooms you have joined, and whether you'd like a notice when someone begins meditating in each.
• How you'd like reminders, and, if you turn on notifications, the address of each device that should receive them.
• When your light was on in each gathering, so we can count how many people meditated and for how long.
• Your visits while signed in (the same visit records as above), linked to your account.
• The people you block, with the name they were shown with, so their words and emoji don't reach you on any of your devices.
• Reports you send, and reports others send about what you wrote (see below).
• Stories you send us, with the name and place you write for them; we show a story only after reading it, and only if you agreed it may be shared.
• If you buy something in the app: the App Store's or Google Play's record of the purchase (what it was, when, and whether it is still active), so it counts for your account. We never see payment details.
• If you buy something on the website: Paddle's record of the purchase (what it was, when, and whether a subscription is still active), so it counts for your account. We never see payment details.

A sign-in cookie keeps you signed in for up to a year while you keep using the site. The website also keeps your display choices and your light's place in your browser.

What other people see

In a gathering, everyone sees each light at its rounded place and in its color. When you write kind words, people in the gathering see your name with them. Hosts are shown with their name. In a meditation room, members see each other's names and lights, and who is meditating now. A host's summary after a gathering has counts only (how many meditated, in how many places and countries), never who.

Kind words and emoji

Messages go to everyone in the gathering at that moment. The server keeps the most recent ones in memory so late arrivals can read back, and forgets them when the gathering empties. They are never written to storage. We count how many words and emoji were sent, as numbers only.

The one exception is a report. Anyone can report a message, a gathering or a room's name, and block someone so their words and emoji no longer reach them. A report keeps only what was reported (the words, or the gathering's or room's name and words), the name shown with it, who wrote it and who reported it, so we can look into it. Nobody is told who reported or blocked them. Reports are deleted after 90 days.

Location

You choose where your light resides: by searching for a town, tapping the globe, or letting your device find you. When the device finds you, the place is rounded to about 50 km on the device before anything is sent. Town searches go through our server to OpenStreetMap, so OpenStreetMap does not see who you are.

Apple Health and Health Connect

If you allow it, the app saves your meditations to Apple Health as Mindful Minutes (iPhone) or to Health Connect as mindfulness sessions (Android). It never reads anything from them, and nothing from them is sent to us.

Who helps run it

These services handle data for us, only to provide the parts described here:

• Amazon Web Services hosts the server and its database.
• Resend sends our emails: sign-in codes, reminders, and host summaries.
• Cloudflare runs the domain, carries the website to you (it keeps copies of the pictures and scripts near you, so pages open quickly), delivers the detailed pictures of the Earth to the app, and on the website shows a short check that you're a person when you sign in with email (Turnstile).
• Apple provides Sign in with Apple and delivers notifications to iPhones. Browsers deliver website notifications through their own push services (for example, Apple, Google, or Mozilla).
• Google provides Sign in with Google, delivers notifications to Android phones (Firebase Cloud Messaging), and sells purchases in the Android app through Google Play, which keeps your payment details under its own privacy policy.
• Google Fonts provides the website's typefaces, so your browser fetches them from Google.
• Paddle (Paddle.com) sells Luminous Plus and hosting on the website as our reseller: it takes the payment, works out tax, and sends receipts. When you buy, we give Paddle your email and name, and you give it your country, postal code and payment details, which Paddle keeps under its own privacy policy.

We do not sell or rent personal data to anyone, and we share it only as described here or when the law requires it.

How long we keep things

• Your account, until you delete it.
• Visit records, 13 months.
• Reports, and the reported words in them, 90 days.
• Sign-in codes and links expire within minutes, and unused sign-in sessions after a year.
• Nightly backups of the database, 14 days.

Your choices

In Your account you can change your name and your light's place, choose how you get reminders, turn off the host summary email, and see and undo the blocks you've made. You can also turn notifications off in your device's settings.

Delete account (in Your account, on the website or in the app) removes your account at once: your email, name, light's place, password, reminders, notification devices, subscriptions, the gatherings you host, your room and your place in others' rooms, your stories, the people you blocked, and the record of when your light was on. Reports you sent or that were made about you lose their link to your account and are deleted after 90 days. You are signed out everywhere. Copies in backups are gone within 14 days. Visit records and the App Store's and Google Play's purchase records are kept, without any link to you. If you can't sign in, write to hello@oneluminousearth.com from the account's email and we will delete it for you.

To ask what we hold about you, or for anything else about privacy, write to hello@oneluminousearth.com.

Children

One Luminous Earth is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly keep personal data from them. If you believe a child has made an account, write to us and we will delete it.

Changes

If this page changes, the date at the top changes with it. If a change is significant, we'll say so on the website before it takes effect.

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