Why privacy matters in a Quran app (and what we actually do at QuranWay)

Last updated: July 2026.

The direct answer, before anything else: no, we don't sell your data, and no, you don't need any account to use QuranWay. No name, no email, no password. That's the short answer in one sentence. The long answer, the one that explains why privacy in a Quran app deserves more attention than privacy in a weather app, is this whole post. Because a religious practice app touches something intimate: what you read, what you're memorizing, where and at what time you pray. That personal data tells the story of your faith. It should never end up with a data broker.

A Quran app isn't an app like any other

When you open a Quran app, you're not browsing a product catalog. You open a surah at night, you track your memorization progress, you set your prayer times based on your location. Put together, these signals sketch out a religious practice. That's exactly the kind of data nobody wants to see circulating.

That's why I take privacy seriously in QuranWay, not as a legal box to check, but as a design constraint. The question I ask myself for every feature isn't "are we allowed to collect this," it's "do we actually need it, and if so, did the user say yes knowing exactly what they agreed to."

What stays on your phone, period

Most of what you do in the app never leaves the device. Your favorites, your memorization progress (hifdh), your reading position, your streak, your preferences, and the photos you use to personalize the app all stay local. Photos are never sent to a server, there's no copy of them on QuranWay's side.

GPS location follows the same rule. It's used only, on your phone, to calculate your prayer times and the qibla direction. It's never transmitted. That's the exact point where a generation of Muslim apps got it wrong, and I come back to that further down.

Focus mode (Screen Time) deserves a mention too. When you block distracting apps during your reading time, Apple only gives me opaque tokens. The app never knows which applications you chose to block. I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to.

What we actually collect, and why

I'm not going to promise you "zero collection," that would be false. QuranWay sends anonymous usage events: surah opened, searches, favorites, quiz scores, streak, onboarding answers. These events are tied to a random identifier generated on your device, not to your identity, since there is no identity. They go to the app's internal backend, and serve exactly one purpose: understanding what works and improving the app.

Using anonymous data to improve an app is not the same thing as selling it. And we don't sell it. It's written plainly in our privacy policy, and it's not a marketing line: there is no sale, no rental of data to brokers, and no ads displayed in the app.

TikTok and ad tracking, without the doublespeak

This is the part most apps bury in a footnote. I'd rather put it in plain sight.

QuranWay uses the TikTok Business SDK to measure the effectiveness of its campaigns. But that SDK receives strictly nothing until you accept iOS's App Tracking Transparency prompt, the small system screen that says "Allow Tracking." If you decline, no event goes to TikTok. None. I put a hard guard in the code around every single event: install, purchase, first surah opened, your IDFA. Decline means total silence.

And if you change your mind one day, in either direction, you can adjust it anytime in iOS Settings, Privacy and Security, Tracking. That's your switch, not mine.

Transparency before the question, not after

Many apps throw the tracking prompt at you on first launch, with no explanation. I did the opposite. Before the ATT prompt even appears, you go through a dedicated onboarding screen, "Your data, your practice," that tells you what stays on your phone, what's collected, and why. The idea is that you answer the tracking question knowing what you're agreeing to, not tapping "OK" just to get rid of it.

Two points of honesty to be thorough. Recitations are streamed from everyayah.com, which sees your IP address, like any server that delivers you an audio file. And payments go through Apple StoreKit and RevenueCat: your card is never seen or stored by the app.

The lesson from 2020

If I'm this precise about location, it's not out of paranoia. In November 2020, a Vice/Motherboard investigation revealed that popular Muslim apps were transmitting their users' location data to a data broker, X-Mode, some of whose clients were contractors working with the US military. The data didn't go "directly to the military," it passed through brokers, but the outcome is the same: the location of people at prayer ended up in a market they never agreed to.

That's precisely what I don't want to repeat, and QuranWay's transparency screen already references that episode. An app that accompanies your faith should be the last place your data leaks from.

FAQ

Is my data sold? No. QuranWay doesn't sell or rent any data to brokers. The only data that leaves the device is anonymous usage events sent to our internal backend to improve the app, and, only if you accept it, measurement events sent to TikTok.

Do I need to create an account? No. No login, no email, no password. You open the app and you read. Most of your data (favorites, memorization, reading position, streak) stays on your phone.

What does TikTok see if I decline tracking? Nothing. If you decline the App Tracking Transparency prompt, no event goes to TikTok and your IDFA is not transmitted. The guard is enforced on every single event in the code. You can change this choice anytime in iOS Settings, Privacy and Security, Tracking.

Where is the full policy? Online, in French, English, and Arabic, at quranway.xyz/en/privacy, and identically in the app. Updated July 2026.

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You can try QuranWay here: app.quranway.xyz or on the App Store. If you want to try QuranWay Plus, the code THEQURANWAY is active.