Your reading stays yours.

FirstWord has no accounts, no ads, no analytics and no tracking, and nothing about you is sold. This page explains what stays on your phone and what is sent when you use a feature.

Last updated 3 October 2026

What stays on your phone

Your notes, highlights, bookmarks, tags, reading plans and study progress are stored on your phone.
Bible text, interlinear data, lexicons and voices you download are stored on your phone so FirstWord works offline.
API keys you enter for your own AI provider are kept in the iPhone Keychain. They’re sent only to the provider they belong to.

iCloud sync on iPhone

On iPhone, your notes and study data sync between your devices through your own private iCloud account, using Apple’s CloudKit. FirstWord’s developer can’t read that data. Apple’s privacy policy covers it.

What is sent when you use a feature

Bible text and audio. To show or play a passage, FirstWord requests it by reference from the translation’s publisher: Crossway’s ESV API, or API.Bible and YouVersion through FirstWord’s server. YouVersion requests carry a random install identifier that YouVersion requires. It isn’t linked to you.
AI features (optional). When you ask a question with the Included option, your question and the passages it needs go through FirstWord’s server to OpenRouter, which sends them to the model that answers (currently DeepSeek). FirstWord’s server doesn’t store them. OpenRouter and the model provider handle them under their own policies.
Your own AI key. If you add a key for Google Gemini, Anthropic, OpenRouter or Voyage AI, your questions go straight from your phone to that provider under your account with them. On Google’s free tier, Google may use your questions and its answers to improve its products, including AI training, and human reviewers may read them.
Meaning-based search. When search runs online, your search text goes through FirstWord’s server to Voyage AI to find matching verses. It isn’t stored.
Downloads. Bible packs, voices and study data come from FirstWord’s download server. Those requests carry no personal information.
Videos and podcasts. Thumbnails and details for linked videos and podcasts load from YouTube, Mux and Apple, the way a browser would load them.
Speaking a verse aloud. Recitation practice uses Apple’s speech recognition. It runs on your phone when your phone supports that, and otherwise Apple processes the audio.
Share links. When you share a word study, chiasm or comparison, the shared item travels inside the link itself. It goes only where you send it.

Server logs

FirstWord’s servers run on Cloudflare. They use your IP address only to limit how often a request can be made, and they don’t keep your questions or searches. Cloudflare may keep standard request logs for a short time to run and protect the service.

On Android

FirstWord for Android isn’t released yet. This page will describe exactly what it keeps and sends before it reaches Google Play. It won’t send anything the iPhone app doesn’t.

Children

FirstWord isn’t directed at children under 13 and doesn’t knowingly collect information from them.

Deleting your data

Deleting the app removes everything stored on your phone. On iPhone, you can remove synced data in Settings → your name → iCloud → Manage Account Storage → FirstWord.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, this page will show the new date. Questions: support@firstword-bible.com.