Privacy Policy

What this policy covers

This document explains how the Sercade iOS app (bundle identifier com.norvera.sercade), developed by Norvera, handles personal data. Third-party pages or map applications opened from within the app fall outside this policy.

Data we collect

Norvera collects no personal data from you. Everything the app needs to work is produced on your device and stays there. There is no record of you that reaches us or that we keep.

Advertising is the one exception: ads are served by Google AdMob, which collects its own data for that purpose. What it collects is set out under Advertising.

What we do not collect:

• Name, email address, phone number or any other identifier — the app has no concept of an account.
• Location history. Your location is never stored, accumulated or sent to us — nor is it sent to the ad network.
• Usage statistics, event logs or crash reports. The app contains no analytics or crash-reporting tool.
• Contacts, photos, files or microphone access — these permissions are never requested.

Location information

If you grant permission, the app reads your approximate or precise location from the device’s location service. It is used for three things:

• Prayer times and qibla: computed entirely on the device with the adhan library. Your coordinates are not sent anywhere for this.
• Nearby mosques: when you open this feature, your coordinates are sent to Overpass API servers, which serve OpenStreetMap data. The primary server is overpass-api.de, run by the OpenStreetMap community. When it does not answer, the query goes to overpass.kumi.systems and overpass.private.coffee, mirrors run by independent operators. Only your coordinates and a radius are sent; the query is anonymous and nothing identifying you is attached to it.
• Time zone and place name: shown on screen using the device’s own geocoding.

Permissions requested

The app requests only the following permissions. Each one can be declined, and declining leaves the rest of the app working:

• Location (while using the app) — for prayer times, qibla and nearby mosques. If declined, you can pick your city manually.
• Notifications — for adhan and prayer-time reminders. Notifications are scheduled on the device; nothing is delivered remotely (no push infrastructure is used).
• Tracking permission (App Tracking Transparency) — this only decides whether ads are personalised. Decline it and ads are not personalised, while the app carries on exactly as before.

What is stored on your device

The following is kept in your phone’s own storage (a SQLite database and the operating system’s secure store). It is not backed up to any cloud of ours and never shared with us:

• Your settings: calculation method, madhhab preference, adhan sound, theme, font size.
• Your reading state: bookmarks, last verse read, khatm progress.
• Your dhikr counters and daily totals.
• The text of surahs you have opened (cached so you can read them offline).
• If applicable, the last known state of your subscription entitlement.

Third-party services

The app connects to the following public services to fetch content. As with any internet request, these services can technically see your IP address and device type; we neither direct nor have access to that. Each has its own privacy policy.

• alquran.cloud — Qur’an text and translations.
• islamic.network CDN — recitation audio.
• Overpass API servers — nearby mosque data from OpenStreetMap (licensed under ODbL). The primary server is the OpenStreetMap community’s; the fallbacks are run by independent operators.
• Aladhan API — Hijri date verification (only a date is sent, never your location).
• Google AdMob — ad delivery; see Advertising.
• Apple App Store — subscriptions and purchases.

Purchases and subscriptions

In-app purchases run entirely through Apple. Your payment details — card number, billing address, name — are processed by Apple; they never reach us and we cannot see them.

The App Store tells us only whether your entitlement is active. That state is kept in your device’s secure store so your premium features keep working offline. You can manage or cancel your subscription at any time from Settings → Apple Account → Subscriptions.

Advertising

To keep development sustainable, the app shows ads through Google AdMob. Google selects and serves those ads, acting as an independent data controller for that purpose. Norvera receives no personal data about you from the ad network — only aggregate impression and revenue reports.

To serve ads, AdMob accesses the following from your device:

• The advertising identifier (IDFA) — only if you granted the tracking permission. Without it, the ad network cannot reach this identifier; iOS does not hand it over.
• Your IP address, and the coarse country/city inferred from it. The GPS location the app obtains under the location permission is not passed to the ad network.
• Device and app information — model, OS version, language, app version.
• Ad interactions — whether an ad was shown, dismissed or tapped.

Your ad choices, and the limits we set

You are asked before ads are personalised. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, the app shows Google’s consent screen on first launch. If you decline, ads are not personalised and the app carries on working. You can change your choice later in Settings.

You can withdraw the tracking permission at any time. Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking lets you switch Sercade off, or turn tracking off for every app at once. The moment permission is withdrawn, the advertising identifier becomes unavailable.

Where ads never appear. No ad is shown on the Qur’an reading screens — the mushaf, surah, juz and bookmark views — under any circumstance. Ads never appear at launch, mid-navigation, or while recitation is playing; only at the natural end of a task.

You can remove ads entirely. Buying the premium subscription or lifetime access stops ad delivery altogether.

You can read how Google uses data in advertising at policies.google.com/technologies/ads.

Children’s privacy

The app is suitable for all ages but is not directed at children specifically, and is declared as such on the App Store. We collect no personal data at all, including age.

Since the app shows ads, one more point is worth stating: ad content is restricted to a general-audience rating. If you would rather your child saw no ads, the premium subscription removes them entirely.

Security and deleting your data

Because the data the app accumulates never leaves your device, its protection rests on the operating system’s app sandbox. Sensitive records such as subscription state are kept in the OS’s encrypted secure store rather than plain storage. All internet requests are encrypted with HTTPS.

There is nothing to delete on a server: uninstalling the app, or clearing its data from system settings, permanently removes everything stored. We hold no copy you could ask us to erase. For the trace held on the ad network’s side, withdraw the permission under Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking — uninstalling the app does not do this for you.

Your rights

Turkey’s Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (Article 11) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) grant you the right to access, correct and erase your personal data.

On Norvera’s side these rights are satisfied by design: since we process no personal data about you, there is no record to access, correct or erase.

Data processed by the ad network is a separate matter: there the controller is Google, and you exercise your rights directly against Google. Independently of the app, you can withdraw the permission under Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking. Either way, you are welcome to write to us at the address below.

Changes to this policy

This page is updated whenever the app’s data behaviour changes, and the date above is refreshed. Significant changes are also announced inside the app. If you would like to see an earlier version of this text, you can ask for it at the address below.

Contact

Write to us with any question about this policy or how the app relates to your data:

support@norvera.net