Azän Privacy Policy

Who this policy covers

This policy covers the Azän app for Android (package com.salahapp.azan), published by Punacha (FZC), Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (“Punacha”, “we”). It describes version 1.0.1 of the app. It does not cover the Punacha website, which has its own Corporate Privacy notice.

What Azän accesses

You choose whether to grant location and notification access. If you decline location, you can enter a place yourself or search for a city, and prayer times and the Qibla bearing still work; the live compass needs the location permission.

• Location — to calculate prayer times, the Qibla bearing, sunrise and sunset, and moon times for where you are, and to let the live compass work. It is read only while the app is in use. See How location is used.
• Motion and orientation sensors — the magnetometer and tilt sensing, for the Qibla compass. See Device sensors and the compass.
• Notifications, exact alarms and vibration — to show the prayer reminders you turn on at the calculated time. See Notifications and alarms.
• Internet — to search for a city by name and, on some devices, for Android’s place-name lookup. See Third-party services.
• Your email app — when you tap a support or contact address, Azän opens your email app with a message you can read and edit before you send it.
• Sharing — when you export a prayer timetable as a PDF, Azän creates the file on your device and opens Android’s share sheet. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you choose where it goes.

Android permissions listed in the app

The Android package lists the permissions below. Some are declared by software libraries that Azän includes rather than by Azän’s own features; those are marked.

Azän does not request access to your contacts, photos, files, camera, microphone, calendar, call or message data, or your advertising identifier. Azän does not request background location access. Its Android package does not include the physical-activity (step-counting) permission, the permission that lets Google deliver push messages, or access to Google Play’s install-referrer service; the libraries that declare them are included, but those permissions are removed from Azän.

How location is used

When it is read. Azän asks Android for a single position reading when you choose “Use my location” during setup, when you tap the refresh control on the Today screen, and, if your current place is the automatic one taken from your device location, each time you bring the app back to the foreground. It does not track you continuously and does not read location when the app is closed or in the background.

What it is for. The reading is used to calculate prayer times, the Qibla bearing, sunrise and sunset, and moon times for where you are, and to show the celestial display. Android’s location service may use Google Play services on devices that have it.

Place-name lookup. After reading your position, Azän asks Android’s built-in geocoder to turn the coordinates into a place name, so you see a city rather than numbers. That lookup is performed by Android, not by Azän or Punacha. Depending on your device, Android may send the coordinates to an online service to answer it; on many devices that service is operated by Google. Azän uses only the city, region and country from the answer and does not control how the service handles the request. If the lookup fails, Azän still works.

Moving around. If your current place is the automatic one, Azän updates it when you have moved about 35 km. It replaces that place rather than adding a trail of past positions, and it does not build a history of where you have been.

The compass. On Android, the live compass service only delivers readings when the location permission is granted. If you deny it, the Qibla bearing is still shown for the place you chose, but the live compass is unavailable.

Where it goes. The place name, coordinates and time zone are saved on your device so the app works offline (see Local storage). Azän does not send your coordinates to Punacha and does not use location for advertising.

Your choices. You can decline the permission and choose a manual place, a preset or a city search instead. You can withdraw the permission at any time in Android’s app settings.

Device sensors and the compass

The Qibla compass reads your phone’s magnetometer and motion and tilt sensors. It does this only while the Qibla screen is open and the app is in the foreground. The readings are processed on your device to point the compass and to tell you when the phone is not flat; they are not saved and are not sent anywhere.

Azän does not use the step counter or any physical-activity data.

Notifications and alarms

Local reminders only. Prayer reminders are notifications scheduled on your device from the times Azän calculates. Azän plans the next seven days of prayer reminders ahead, and the optional Friday reminder further ahead, so they arrive without internet and without the app being open. No server sends them.

No push messaging. Azän does not use push notifications. Google’s Firebase messaging components are bundled as part of the notification library Azän uses, but Azän includes no Firebase project configuration, never requests a push token, sends no messages through any server, and removes the permission that would let Google deliver push messages to it.

Exact alarms. Prayer times are fixed moments, so Azän uses Android’s exact-alarm permissions to deliver a reminder at the calculated minute. They are used for reminders only. After a restart or an app update, the notification library uses the boot permission to restore your scheduled reminders.

What a reminder contains. The app name and the prayer name, for example “Fajr prayer reminder”. It contains no personal data.

Your choices. Notification permission is requested when you turn reminders on. You can turn reminders off in Azän or in Android’s notification settings. Delivery is controlled by Android and by your device settings and is not guaranteed.

Local storage

What is stored on your device

Azän keeps one local database in its private app storage. It contains:

• your saved places: name, optional city, region and country, latitude and longitude, time zone, how the place was added, and when it was created and updated;
• which place is currently selected, and the most recently calculated prayer schedule for it;
• your calculation settings (such as the method, Asr method, high-latitude rule, custom angles and minute adjustments) and your Hijri date adjustment;
• your reminder settings for each prayer, the Friday reminder, and the identifiers of reminders already scheduled;
• your language, appearance and time-format choices, and whether setup is complete;
• your Tasbih count and target.

City search results are kept in the app’s memory for up to an hour to avoid repeating a request. They are not written to storage.

Temporary files

When you export a timetable, Azän creates a PDF in a temporary location on your device so it can be shared. It contains the place name, time zone, calculation method and that month’s prayer times, and does not contain coordinates.

Device backups

Android’s cloud backup is turned off for Azän (android:allowBackup="false"), so Android does not copy Azän’s data to your Google account. On some devices, when you set up a new phone directly from an old one, Android’s device-to-device transfer may still copy Azän’s app data across. That transfer goes from one of your devices to the other; Punacha does not receive it. Azän offers no cloud backup or sync of its own.

Premium and Google Play Billing

The version of Azän described here is free. It has no in-app purchases, subscriptions or paid features, and it does not include Google Play Billing or any other payment software. It does not ask for payment details, and no payment information is collected or received.

Punacha may add optional paid features in the future. Before any version that offers a purchase through Google Play is released, this policy will be updated to describe how it works.

Third-party services

These are the third-party services involved in Azän’s behaviour. There are no others in the release build.

• OpenStreetMap Nominatim (OpenStreetMap Foundation). When you type three or more characters into “Search city”, Azän sends that search text to nominatim.openstreetmap.org over HTTPS to find matching places. The request also carries what any internet request carries, including your IP address, and an app identifier (Azan-by-SalahApp/1.0). It does not contain your coordinates. Azän waits at least a second between requests. Using your device location or entering coordinates yourself makes no such request. The service is operated by the OpenStreetMap Foundation under its own privacy policy, published at osmfoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_Policy.
• Android’s system geocoder and Google Play services. Android’s place-name lookup and, on devices that have it, Google Play services’ location provider are part of your device’s operating system. They are described in How location is used and are governed by your device maker’s and Google’s terms and privacy policies.
• Android device-to-device transfer. See Device backups.
• Firebase messaging components. Bundled with the notification library but not configured or used by Azän, as described under Notifications and alarms.

The release build contains no analytics, advertising, attribution, crash-reporting or payment software, and Azän does not read your advertising identifier. Azän also runs open-source software libraries on your device. They are used for calculation, display, sensors, notifications and storage.

Data sharing

Punacha does not receive your location, settings or usage from the app, and does not sell or rent your information. Azän does not share data with advertisers or data brokers and does not track you across other apps or websites.

Information leaves your device only in these cases: the city-search text and the place-name lookup described above; a device-to-device transfer, on devices where Android performs one when you set up a new phone; and anything you choose to send yourself, such as an exported PDF or an email.

Retention, deletion and your choices

On your device. Azän’s data stays on your device until you remove it. In Settings, “Delete all local data” deletes your saved places and settings from Azän’s database and returns the app to its defaults. Uninstalling Azän removes its data from the device.

What that does not reach. Deleting data in the app or uninstalling does not remove files you have exported or shared, emails you have sent, or data already copied to another phone by a device-to-device transfer.

With us. Because Azän has no server of ours, we hold no app data about you to delete. If you email us, we receive what you choose to include. We use it to reply and to fix what you reported, and we keep it only as long as that needs. You can ask us about it, or ask us to correct or delete it, by writing to admin@punacha.com. A support message that Azän drafts includes the app version, your Android version, your language and your calculation settings, which you can read and change before sending; it never includes your coordinates or a device identifier.

Permissions. You can withdraw location, notification and alarm access at any time in Android’s settings.

Children’s privacy

Azän is a general-audience prayer utility and is not designed for children. Azän has no accounts, does not ask for a name, email address or age, and does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information by email, contact us and we will delete it.

Security

Azän’s only direct network request uses HTTPS. Your data is kept in Azän’s private app storage on your device. Azän does not separately encrypt that database; it relies on Android’s separation between apps and on your device’s lock screen and encryption. Because Azän has no accounts, there are no passwords to protect. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

International availability

Azän is designed to be used anywhere in the world. Prayer calculations, the Qibla bearing and your saved data are handled on your device, wherever you are, and Punacha does not receive or transfer them. The two features that involve other services may process data outside your country: city search is answered by servers operated by the OpenStreetMap Foundation, and place-name lookup is answered by whichever service your device uses. Punacha is based in the United Arab Emirates. This policy is provided in English.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the app changes. The current version, with its effective date, will always be on this page, and we will update it before releasing a version that changes what is described here.

Contact

For privacy questions, contact Punacha (FZC), Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, at admin@punacha.com.