Ribbon privacy policy

What stays on your phone

Ribbon keeps the following in its own storage on your phone:

• your reading plan, and the plans you ended or replaced before it, which it keeps for your reading history and all-time stats
• the days and chapters you’ve marked as read, and when you marked them
• where you stopped in each day’s reading you haven’t finished, and when, so the day opens where you left it. Ribbon keeps up to 20 of these, and forgets a day’s place once it’s marked read
• your bookmarks, highlights and notes
• the searches you’ve used, with when you last used each one, unless you turn search history off
• the reading pace Ribbon learns as you scroll through the day’s reading yourself, which it uses for the minutes it shows. Only the pace is kept, not how you scrolled
• your settings, such as text size, theme, reminder times, your read aloud voice and speed, and the chapter you were last reading

Your reading history, plan history, stats and the Analytics page are all worked out on your phone from this information. In Ribbon, Analytics means your own reading figures, shown only to you.

The Bible text, the verse of the day list, Easton’s Bible Dictionary, Webster’s word meanings and the language model behind search by meaning are built into the app. Ribbon doesn’t send any of this to us or to anyone else.

Ribbon works without an internet connection and doesn’t send anything about you or your reading over the internet.

Search and the dictionary

Every search runs on your phone, including search by meaning, the dictionary and searches of your own notes. Search by meaning uses a language model built into the app, so what you type isn’t sent anywhere.

Looking up a word, with Look up on verses you select or with Dictionary in Search, also happens on your phone. Ribbon doesn’t keep a list of the words you look up.

Ribbon keeps up to 50 of your recent searches on your phone, so you can run them again. A search is kept only when you use it, by pressing search or opening a result. Dictionary searches aren’t kept. To stop this, turn off Keep search history in Settings, under Search history. Turning it off also clears the list. You can also clear the list at any time with Clear search history, or remove a single search from the list in Search.

Read aloud

Read aloud uses your phone’s own text-to-speech, with the voice you pick in Settings or your phone’s usual voice. Ribbon gives it only the Bible text being read, each chapter’s heading, and a sample verse when you try a voice in Settings. Ribbon leaves out the voices your phone lists as network voices, which need the internet. If you use your phone’s usual voice, or Ribbon switches to it because the voice you picked isn’t working, whether it uses the internet depends on your phone’s text-to-speech settings.

Verse of the day

The verse of the day comes from a list built into the app, and every reader gets the same verse on a given date. Showing it on Today, in the Verse of the day widget or in your morning reminder doesn’t use the internet.

Sharing and copying verses

You can share the verse of the day, or verses you select, as a picture or as text. Ribbon makes the picture on your phone and keeps only the most recent one, in its temporary storage. It then passes the picture or the text to your phone’s share sheet. It goes only to the app or person you choose, and that app’s own privacy policy applies from there. Your notes are never included. Copying verses puts them on your phone’s clipboard.

Home-screen widgets

Ribbon has four optional home-screen widgets: Today, Verse of the day, Plan progress and Timeline. If you add one, it shows your reading, your plan’s progress or the verse of the day on your home screen, where anyone who can see your phone can see it. The widgets read only what Ribbon keeps on your phone. They don’t use the internet and need no extra permissions.

Backups

If Backup is turned on in your phone’s settings, Android copies Ribbon’s data to your own Google account, as it does for your other apps. This covers everything listed under “What stays on your phone”, including your notes and search history. The Bible text and dictionaries are left out, because they come with the app. Google handles this under your Google account and Google’s privacy policy. We can’t see it. Android can also copy this data to a new phone when you move your apps across.

If you save or send a backup file from Settings, under Backup and restore, it goes only where you choose, such as a folder on your phone, Google Drive, an email or another app. To send a file, Ribbon first writes a copy to its own temporary storage on your phone. A backup file (a .ribbon file) holds the same data, including your notes and search history, and isn’t encrypted, so keep it somewhere you trust. Restoring from a backup file replaces what’s on your phone, and Ribbon asks you before it does.

Reminders

Reading reminders are scheduled on your phone and shown by your phone. They don’t use the internet, and nothing about them leaves your phone. A reminder shows the day’s reading. If you turn on Include verse of the day, the morning reminder also shows the verse of the day.

Permissions

Notifications: to show your reading reminders, and only if you allow it. On Android 13 and later, Ribbon asks when you start a plan or turn a reminder on. You can turn reminders off in Settings at any time.

Alarms and reminders: so your reading reminders come at the time you set, if you allow it in your phone’s settings. On Android 12 and later, Exact reminder times, in Settings under Reminders, takes you there.

Ribbon also uses routine Android permissions that ask nothing of you: to set reminders again after the phone restarts, and to give a light vibration when you mark a day as read or tick a day or chapter as read.

Your phone or Google Play may also list internet access, network status and keeping the phone from sleeping. These come with the standard software Ribbon is built with. Ribbon makes no internet connections of its own. Read aloud, auto-scroll and the speed reader keep your screen on while they run.

Ribbon saves and opens backup files through your phone’s own file and folder pickers, so it doesn’t ask for access to your phone’s storage.

Removing your data

You can remove bookmarks, highlights and notes in the app, and clear your search history. Ribbon has no way to delete your earlier plans, your reading history or the reading pace it has learned on their own. Uninstalling Ribbon removes everything it keeps on your phone. You manage the copy in your Google account backup through your Google account. Any backup files you’ve saved stay where you put them until you delete them.

Children

Ribbon doesn’t collect information from anyone, including children.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be in the app and on this page, with the date it changed.

Contact

Questions about this policy: email ribbon@burystack.com.

Who we are

Ribbon is published by Burystack, a trading name of Guzzbury Limited. Contact: ribbon@burystack.com. Company details: see Legal.