Privacy Policy

Article 1 · Personal Information We Collect

Membership and login information

• Email sign-up: email address, password (the Company does not store plain-text passwords), nickname
• Social login: the identifier received from the provider (Apple / Google / Kakao) and, where the provider supplies them, email address, name, and profile photo URL
• Profile: nickname, avatar (emoji or image URL)
• Authentication identifier: an internal authentication identifier used to distinguish members within the Service

User-generated content

• Text and attached images of gratitude notes and Today's Verse posts
• Personal prayers and community prayer requests, and to-do and prayer check records
• Like, Amen, and Comfort reactions
• Community and small-group membership and role information, and join-request history
• Gratitude Awards selection results and related notes
• Report history, block lists, and content review and administrator review records arising from reports

Consent information of legal representatives of children under 14

• Mobile phone number of the legal representative (guardian), stored encrypted
• Declaration confirming the legal-representative relationship (parent / legal representative)
• Consent text version, consent status and time, and consent scope (required and optional consents)
• Age check result (information on when the child turns 14)

Device and automatically generated information

• Expo push token, used to send push notifications
• Access records (such as IP address) generated by the Firebase platform for authentication and security while the Service is used
• Only for users to whom ads are shown: device information processed by the Google Mobile Ads (AdMob) SDK to serve ads, limit ad frequency, and prevent fraudulent clicks (advertising identifier, IP address, device and app information, ad impression and click records). Only non-personalized ads are requested, and the Company does not separately collect or store this data.

Subscription and payment information

• The user identifier used for subscription management (the account ID assigned by the Company)
• Subscription product ID, subscription status (active, grace period, payment failed, expired), scheduled end of benefits, auto-renewal status, purchasing store (App Store, Google Play), whether the purchase is a test (sandbox) purchase, whether a billing issue occurred, and subscription event identifiers

Ad age self-declaration

• The age range the user selects (19 or older / under 19), the time of the declaration, and the policy version

※ This value is a self-declaration used only to decide whether ads may be shown. No date of birth or identity documents are collected for it. It is not shown on your profile.

Gratitude Fruit (reward) information

• Gratitude Fruit balance, total earned and spent, end time of the ad-free reward period, and the last day Fruit was earned
• Records (ledger) of Fruit earned and redeemed

※ Gratitude Fruits have no cash value and cannot be bought, sold, refunded, or transferred.

※ WITH GRATITUDE NOTE does not install separate analytics tools that track user behavior, or crash-reporting tools.

Article 2 · How We Collect Personal Information

• Entered directly by the user at sign-up, social login, or profile editing, or received from the social login provider within the scope of the OAuth consent
• Direct input and image uploads by the user
• Community activity (join requests, reactions, shared posts, etc.)
• Reports and blocks made by the user
• Direct input by the guardian on the legal-representative consent web page
• Security and access records generated automatically while the Service is used
• Subscription status received through the subscription management provider (RevenueCat) when a subscription is purchased, renewed, or canceled in the App Store or Google Play
• Information processed automatically by the Google Mobile Ads (AdMob) and consent management (UMP) SDKs on the devices of users to whom ads are shown
• Gratitude Fruit earning and spending records created by the server when a gratitude note is written or a redemption is requested

Article 3 · Purposes of Use

• Identifying members, verifying identity, and keeping users signed in
• Providing the gratitude note, prayer, to-do, and community features, and applying the visibility the user selects
• Sending push notifications (reminders, community activity alerts)
• Confirming legal-representative consent and protecting children under 14
• Reviewing reported content, preventing misuse, and keeping communities safe
• Recommending Bible verses suited to a gratitude note when the user asks
• Processing account deletion and requests from users and legal representatives to exercise their rights
• Providing the paid subscription (Premium), checking subscription status, and restoring purchases
• Showing non-personalized ads and deciding to whom ads may be shown (based on the self-declared age range)
• Collecting and managing ad privacy consent (UMP)
• Awarding and redeeming Gratitude Fruits and applying ad-free reward periods
• Responding to customer inquiries and improving service quality

Article 4 · Post Visibility and Sharing Between Users

Gratitude notes and Today's Verse posts are shown according to the visibility the user selects when writing them, as follows.

• Only me: only the author can see the post.
• Public: visible to other users signed in to the Service (except where blocked or where feed visibility is turned off).
• A selected community (whole): visible to the members of that community.
• Selected small groups: visible only to the members of the selected small groups.
• Multiple selection: several communities and small groups can be selected together.

Personal prayers are visible only to the user. A community prayer is shared with the members of a community only when the user asks to share it and the community leader approves. Profile information such as nickname and avatar, and the posts and reactions a user makes, may be shown to other members through community activity (join requests, reactions, shared posts, etc.).

Article 5 · Information That May Be Sensitive

In gratitude notes, Today's Verse posts, and prayer requests, users may voluntarily write content that may be sensitive, such as religious beliefs, health conditions, family relationships, or personal concerns. Such information may be disclosed to community members and others according to the visibility the user selects, so please check the visibility setting when writing and sharing.

For children under 14, a separate required consent regarding the possible processing of potentially sensitive information is obtained from the legal representative, distinct from the general consent.

Article 6 · Artificial Intelligence (AI) Processing

The Service uses external AI services only in the two cases below, for community safety and user convenience. In this process, the user's account identifier (member ID) and email address are not sent.

OpenAI · Review of reported content

• Only when another user reports a post, the post's text, attached images (URLs), report reason, and visibility information are sent to OpenAI for an automated review of whether the content is harmful.
• Posts are not sent automatically; only posts that have been reported are sent.

Anthropic · Verse recommendation

• Only when the user chooses the verse recommendation feature while writing a gratitude note, the text of that note (up to 500 characters) is sent to Anthropic to receive suitable Bible verse recommendations.
• Users under 14 may use this feature only with the optional consent of their legal representative.

Data retention and training policies of external AI providers

OpenAI: inputs, outputs, and related metadata may be included in logs to monitor misuse and abuse of the API, and are by default kept for up to 30 days and then deleted. However, they may be kept longer where needed to meet legal obligations or to protect the service or third parties. Data sent through the API is not used for model training without the user's separate consent.

Anthropic: inputs and outputs of the standard API are, in principle, deleted within 30 days. However, exceptions may apply for legal obligations, responses to policy violations, or separate contracts or features. They are not used for model training without the user's separate permission.

The retention and training policies above are based on each provider's published policies, and the Company checks and reflects them. Details of overseas transfers are set out in Article 10.

Article 7 · Protection of Personal Information of Children Under 14

• Users aged 14 or older may sign up through the general procedure.
• Children under 14 may use the Service after the consent and confirmation of their legal representative are complete.
• Age is checked before login, and the original date of birth is not stored.
• Legal-representative consent is given on a web page reached through a link sent to the guardian's mobile phone, and an SMS confirmation is sent to the same phone number.
• During the consent process, a declaration confirming the legal-representative relationship is obtained.
• Until legal-representative consent is complete (approved), use of the Service is restricted, including account use, registering posts, prayers, and images, and sending data to external AI.
• The legal representative may request access to, correction of, deletion of, or suspension of processing of the child's personal information, and may withdraw consent.

The Company collects only the minimum information needed to obtain legal-representative consent (the guardian's mobile phone number and the confirmation of the legal-representative relationship).

Article 7-2 · Advertising and Age

The Service may show ads to free users. Ads are requested only under the following conditions.

• Ads are requested only if the user has declared that they are 19 or older. If the user has declared that they are under 19, or has not yet answered, no ads are requested.
• Ads are not shown on accounts of children under 14.
• The age range is the user's own self-declaration and is not verified by the Company. No date of birth or identity documents are collected; the value is used only to decide whether ads may be shown and is not shown on the profile. It can be changed at any time in Settings.
• All ad requests are for non-personalized ads only, and ad content is limited to the general-audience (G) rating.
• No ads are requested while the user has an active paid subscription (Premium) or an ad-free reward period from Gratitude Fruits.
• No ads are requested unless ad privacy consent (UMP) has been confirmed.

Article 8 · Optional Consent Items

The legal representative of a child under 14 may choose individually whether to consent to each optional item below.

• Use of the verse recommendation feature (sending to Anthropic)
• Attaching and storing images

Even if optional consent is refused, basic features such as gratitude notes and prayer can still be used. Only the feature that was not consented to (verse recommendation or image attachment) is restricted.

The legal representative may later consent to optional items that were not consented to at first. When the child requests additional consent in the app, a consent link is sent to the registered legal representative's mobile phone number. When the legal representative consents item by item on that web page, only the consented features are enabled.

Article 9 · Entrustment of Processing

The Service does not sell users' personal information and does not separately provide it to third parties other than for the entrusted purposes below. To provide the Service reliably, the Company entrusts some tasks to the following companies.

Apple, Google, and Kakao login are external login (authentication) providers that users choose themselves. When a user chooses one of them, identifying information is exchanged with that provider for authentication.

Message delivery operators, such as mobile carriers, may be involved in sending the text messages (SMS) for legal-representative consent and management.

Article 10 · Overseas Processing and Transfer of Personal Information

As set out below, the Service may entrust some processing of personal information to overseas companies or transfer it overseas (Article 28-8 of the Personal Information Protection Act of Korea). For some of the items below, the exact country of the data center and the retention and use period follow each company's policies and service-region settings, and the Company continuously checks and updates this information.

When Apple, Google, or Kakao login is used, identifying information may be exchanged, for authentication, with the provider the user chose (including overseas providers).

Users may refuse the overseas transfers above. However, if a user refuses, signing up for and using the Service, or some features such as report-based content review and verse recommendation, may be restricted. Please tell us that you refuse by using the contact details below.

Article 11 · Retention and Use Periods

Where retention is required by applicable laws, information is kept for the period set by those laws and then destroyed.

Article 12 · Withdrawal and Destruction of Personal Information

Users can withdraw their membership and delete their personal information themselves in the app, under Settings → Account → "Delete account" (shown as "계정 · 탈퇴하기" in the Korean app). Once deletion is finally confirmed, deletion of the account and related data starts immediately. When processing is complete, the user is signed out and the data cannot be recovered. When withdrawal is confirmed, the Company handles data as follows.

• The user's account, the personal content the user wrote (gratitude notes, prayers, etc.), and attached images are deleted. The Firebase authentication account is deleted in the final step.
• Reference information, such as Like, Amen, and Comfort reactions left on other posts and community memberships, is cleaned up (to the extent that it does not affect other users' use of the Service).
• Communities in which the user is the only member and owner are deleted together. For communities that still have other members, the user can withdraw after transferring ownership or dissolving the community.
• For report and content review records, direct identifiers (UID, email, nickname, profile, post text, images, etc.) and unnecessary content information are removed immediately on account deletion. Only minimal de-identified and anonymized review records, with direct identifiers removed, are kept for 1 year from the final review or action date and then destroyed automatically (see Article 11).
• Subscription status information, the Gratitude Fruit balance and ledger, and the ad age self-declaration are deleted together. Any Gratitude Fruits held and any remaining ad-free reward period are forfeited and cannot be restored or refunded.
• Information in electronic file form is permanently deleted in a way that cannot be recovered.

Withdrawal by users who signed up with Apple login

When a user who signed up with Apple login withdraws, the user first re-authenticates with Apple for security. The Company then revokes the login connection token between the Service and the Apple account and deletes the app account and data. What is deleted is the WITH GRATITUDE NOTE account and the login connection; the Apple ID itself is not deleted.

Deletion by a legal representative

A legal representative can, without logging in, request withdrawal of consent for a child's account or deletion of the account and data, through the guardian management link and an SMS re-confirmation on their mobile phone. The target account is identified only from information bound on the server. When a legal representative deletes a child's account that was created with Apple login and the connection cannot be revoked automatically, the legal representative is guided to remove the WITH GRATITUDE NOTE connection directly in the Apple account settings (the Apple ID itself is not deleted).

If it is difficult to access the app, you can request deletion through the contact details below (see the account deletion guide, in Korean).

Article 13 · Rights of Users and Legal Representatives

Users and legal representatives may at any time request access to, correction of, deletion of, or suspension of processing of personal information, withdraw consent, and request account deletion. These rights can be exercised through the following.

• The in-app Profile and Settings menus (access, editing, account deletion)
• In the app's Settings, "Ad privacy settings" (changing or withdrawing ad privacy consent) and "Age range for ads" (changing the age range self-declaration)
• Legal representatives: the guardian management link (withdrawal of consent, account deletion), and adding or changing optional consents (through the link sent when the child requests additional consent)
• Email: support@whalescompany.kr

Article 14 · Security Measures

• Authentication and access control, and the principle of least privilege
• Access control based on Firestore and Storage security rules
• TLS encryption in transit
• Passwords are managed securely by industry-standard methods through Firebase Authentication, and the Company does not store plain-text passwords
• Sensitive authentication information is kept in the device's secure storage, and one-time tokens are stored as hashes instead of in their original form
• Guardians' mobile phone numbers are stored encrypted
• Automated requests and misuse are prevented through Cloudflare Turnstile and request rate limits
• Logs are managed so that they do not contain personal information

Article 15 · Chief Privacy Officer and Notices

Chief Privacy Officer: 차용화, Representative Director (대표이사)
Company: Whales Company (주식회사 웨일즈컴퍼니)
Address: 부산광역시 연제구 월드컵대로 160, 4층 430호(연산동, 제이에이치빌딩) (Room 430, 4F, JH Building, 160 Worldcup-daero, Yeonje-gu, Busan, Republic of Korea)
Email: support@whalescompany.kr

For requests to exercise your rights, such as access, correction, deletion, or suspension of processing of personal information, and for other privacy inquiries, please email the address above, and we will reply without delay.

If this Policy is added to, deleted from, or amended, we will announce it through in-app notices from 7 days before the effective date (30 days before for changes that are disadvantageous to users).