KrishnaUpdated 21 September 2026 · Sereze
The short version
Krishna has no advertising, external analytics, tracking SDK, account system, or marketing messages. Core reading works without sending personal information to us. My insights offers optional, device-only time-in-app totals and daily chant counts. It never measures devotion or changes your readings.
Weekly reading
This week with Krishna contains bundled editorial questions, not AI-generated answers. Only your current theme, question position, answer visibility and current theme dates are saved in a separate device-only, when-unlocked Keychain record. Answers are checked on screen but are not saved. No score or ability profile is kept. Your place is not sent to a model, synchronized, indexed by device search or included in reading backups. Opening Journey does not start the weekly schedule. It begins when you choose Begin. Clear weekly reading position, under About this reading, removes this record without affecting notes or other reading positions.
Optional reminders
Daily reading, weekly questions and chanting have separate reminders, all off by default. Notification permission is requested only when you turn a reminder on. Your chosen time, weekly day and enabled preference are stored on this device. Apple schedules the local notification; Krishna sends no reminder request to a server. Notifications have no sound or badge and do not interrupt you inside the app. Tapping opens the relevant screen without starting speech, answering a question or changing a chant count. Turning a reminder off removes its pending and delivered notifications on this device. System settings and Focus can silence or delay notifications.
Read aloud
Listen uses Apple’s speech synthesis and installed voices. It starts only when you choose it and does not use an LLM, a microphone or an audio recording. Device volume controls remain unchanged. Voice and speed preferences, one Continue destination and up to 30 public reading positions are kept locally. Positions contain a content identifier, fingerprint and text offset, not the spoken text. They are not included in Krishna’s encrypted export, Spotlight, widgets or Handoff. Public readings can continue while the screen is locked or another app is open. The public reading title and paragraph position appear in system playback controls. Calls and disconnected headphones pause playback without an automatic restart. Private notes, AI answers and previews stop when you leave their screen or the app, do not save listening positions and do not appear in system playback metadata. You can resume a public reading, start over or set a sleep timer. Voices are synthesized, not a human narrator or Krishna’s voice. Pronunciation is not a reviewed recitation.
Optional learning song
Gita Through Song plays an audio file included with the app. Its music and vocals were generated with AI before publication. Playback works offline and starts only when you press Play. It does not contact Suno, use a microphone or save listening history. It pauses when you leave the player, lock your device or disconnect headphones. The song is a musical introduction, not a scripture recitation. Read aloud for other readings continues to use Apple’s speech synthesis.
Shortcuts and device search
Siri and Shortcuts can open public readings or the chant counter. Continue reading resolves your saved place only inside Krishna and does not return reading history to Shortcuts. Device search indexes bundled Gita chapters, original passages and temple guides. It never indexes notes, questions, bookmarks, visits, location or reading history. You can turn this public index off in Settings under Shortcuts and device search. Turning it off requests removal of Krishna’s public entries from Spotlight. No Handoff activity is shared.
AI answers and question history
Passage questions use AI language models, also called large language models (LLMs). Apple Intelligence is tried on your device first. Cloud AI is enabled by default for questions and daily stories; turn it off in Settings to use on-device AI only. Tapping Ask authorizes processing of that question under the disclosure beside the button. If Apple cannot provide an answer and Cloud AI is enabled, the question, selected bundled passage, source locator and editorial explanation may be sent directly to Anthropic over HTTPS. A safety refusal does not trigger another provider. Private notes, past questions and answers, location, bookmarks and reading history are never included. Reading this policy or completing onboarding does not grant permission to send a question; submitting it with Ask does. The latest 10 completed question-and-answer pairs are saved in a separate, device-only Keychain record, with their passage links and dates. They do not sync, enter widgets, or form part of exported backups. Older pairs are removed when a new answer exceeds this limit. You can delete one answer or clear them all in Recent questions. Deletion in Krishna does not delete any data retained by a provider. Turning off Cloud AI stops future cloud requests and cancels pending work but cannot retract a request already received by a provider. The AI provider may retain request content and technical metadata under its policies. Our access service may process technical request metadata but does not receive the passage question. Retention and deletion have not been independently verified. Do not submit sensitive personal information. Any future provider will be identified before a question is sent to it. A parent or caregiver should decide whether using AI answers is appropriate.
Watch and daily widgets
Daily widgets share a small schedule of public teaching identifiers, your reading language and time zone with the app through an Apple App Group. Your paired Apple Watch can receive the same schedule through WatchConnectivity. The schedule covers up to 32 days and is replaced when the app refreshes it. Notes, questions, location, credentials, reading history and private context preferences are not included. Daily reading remains bundled when synchronization is unavailable. Watch chant counts are stored separately in device only Keychain records; they do not sync to iPhone or Mac. Reset clears only the selected Watch session. Its total recorded count stays. Widgets never show private notes or chant counts. Daily text is marked privacy sensitive for the system’s locked and always on presentations. You choose whether to add a widget. Widget refresh timing and delivery to a paired Watch are controlled by the system.
Optional reading backup
Settings offers an explicit encrypted export of notes, bookmarks and reading positions. This is not automatic sync or a full device backup. Read marks, guided reading plans, chants, visits, generated stories, app preferences, online permissions and credentials are excluded. AES GCM protects the file with a randomly generated recovery code held only in memory. Keep that code separately; we cannot recover it. An explicit Copy action places the code on this device’s clipboard for up to five minutes without Universal Clipboard sharing. The file goes only to the destination you choose, which may sync through your Files provider. Restore requires the code and your confirmation. It merges missing bookmarks and positions, preserves current positions, and keeps conflicting note versions separately.
Online access
Our online access service authorizes optional AI requests. It may receive technical information needed to authorize a request and prevent misuse. Passage questions, private notes, location and reading history are not sent to this access service. Your question or bundled story is processed by the AI provider identified before you send it. Reading offline does not require online AI access.
Daily stories
The first 20 calendar days use 20 distinct bundled English manuscripts. The sequence begins when this feature is first used and is stored only on this device. After that, Krishna automatically prepares tomorrow's English retelling while the app is active, using Apple Intelligence first. Cloud AI is enabled by default. When Apple is unavailable and Cloud AI is enabled, Anthropic receives only a bundled manuscript and its generated draft for writing and checking, not private notes, questions, location, reading history or the sequence start date. You can disable cloud processing for both questions and stories with Cloud AI in Settings. There is no daily confirmation or recurring background task. Today's selected story is not replaced by a new generation. Failed preparation falls back to a previously checked retelling of that same manuscript when its source revision and rules still match, otherwise to the complete bundled story. At most 20 dated retellings and their checks are retained in a separate device-only Keychain record, capped at 512 KiB. They do not sync or enter exported backups. Delete saved AI stories removes this cache and preparation markers, not the bundled sequence or manuscripts. New stories may be prepared on a later day while you use the app. The provider and access service may process technical request metadata, and provider retention policies apply. Retention and deletion have not been independently verified. Checks can miss errors; retellings are labelled AI and are not scripture or independently reviewed. A caregiver should decide whether AI reading is appropriate.
Information kept on your device
Language, reading style, daily context, font size, bookmarks, and last reading positions are stored as local app preferences. Recent searches and research context, chanting counts, temple visit dates, personal reading notes, and the latest 10 answered passage questions are stored in separate device-only Keychain records. Notes contain your writing and an optional attached passage. They do not sync. You can edit, delete, or explicitly share a copy from Notes in Journey. Passage questions never include your private note or past questions. Ask permits processing of the displayed question as explained beside the button. Recent questions lets you delete one saved answer or clear question history. Temple visits contain only a curated temple identifier and the date you choose.
Your read marks
Verse and chapter read marks are stored in a separate device only Keychain record for the bundled edition. They do not sync or leave the device. Only your explicit actions change these marks. Opening a summary, scrolling, and time in the app do not mark a chapter as read. Use the verse checkmarks or Mark chapter as unread to remove them. Undo restores the previous mark action during the current session. These marks are separate from bookmarks and your last reading position.
Private insights
Daily chant counts keep up to 365 dated records on this device. Earlier totals remain without dates. Time in app is off by default and starts only when you enable it in My insights. It counts foreground time, not attention or reading completion. Time totals use a separate encrypted device only Keychain item. Turning the option off pauses recording. Delete time history clears it and stops recording. Clearing a chant in its counter also removes that chant’s dated counts. No insight is uploaded, shared automatically, or used for recommendations. Abrupt app termination may lose the last unsaved interval.
Information we do not ask for
The app does not ask for your name, email address, date of birth, gender, health information, contacts, photos, microphone, or advertising identifier. It does not record chanting, create a transcript, or infer personal traits from what you read or search.
Location, maps, and weather
Location is requested only after you choose Find near me or sort temples by Distance. Approximate location is enough. It is used in memory to rank curated temples and request nearby Apple Maps results, then is not saved by the app. Weather is requested for a selected temple location, not your current position. Public temple weather and required attribution are cached in memory for up to ten minutes. Maps may contact Apple when a map is displayed, even before you request your current location. Apple Maps and WeatherKit are Apple services governed by Apple’s terms and privacy practices.
On device questions
When Apple Foundation Models is available, Ask processes your question and supplied source records on the device. The deterministic fallback also remains on the device. Neither path silently sends the question to a cloud model.
Optional online research
Online research runs only when you choose the separately labeled online research action and confirm. The app then sends the question, locale, time zone, short reviewed source excerpts, and up to three recent questions and answers over HTTPS. It does not send location, bookmarks, reading history, daily context, or chanting and temple visit records. The online research service returns generated answers with citations. Online research is disabled in the Release build. Development builds may send these details through our research service to OpenAI or Anthropic, depending on server configuration. Provider retention, infrastructure logging, and deletion practices have not yet been confirmed for a public release. Do not send sensitive information.
Your controls and deletion
You can remove bookmarks, clear Search and Ask memory, reset chanting counts, and delete temple visits inside the app. Use those controls before removing the app if you want protected Keychain records cleared explicitly. Removing the app removes its ordinary local preferences; Keychain retention after removal is controlled by iOS.
Children and families
The reading experience can be shared with children and contains no targeted advertising or public profile. The app does not knowingly ask children to submit personal information. A parent or caregiver should decide whether a child may use optional online research, browse reference websites, or share outside the app. Reference websites can include material and services outside the curated reading library.
Changes and contact
This policy will be updated if the app’s data practices change. Questions about privacy or deletion can be sent to @saysereze on X. Please do not post sensitive personal information in a public message.
This website
The Krishna website is served using Firebase Hosting. It uses no analytics scripts, advertising, contact forms or browser storage. The hosting provider processes ordinary connection information, such as an IP address and request details, to deliver and protect the site. We do not claim that hosting involves no logs. Google's applicable hosting and privacy terms govern its processing. Links to other websites follow the destination's privacy policy.