Privacy Policy
The short version. Your prayer request is private unless you choose otherwise. Nothing appears on our public wall without your explicit choice and a review by our team. We keep your email even when your request is shown anonymously, so that we can respond to abuse and protect people. We never sell your information. You can ask us to delete anything, at any time, at PrayingWall2911@gmail.com.
This policy is currently published in English only. A Spanish translation is being prepared. If you need this explained in another language, write to us and we will help.
1. Who we are
Praying Wall — known previously as 877-PRAYNOW and then as 844-9PRAYER — is a for-profit business. It is the same ministry, the same team and the same records throughout; only the name and the address have changed. Its website is prayingwall.com, and both former addresses, 877praynow.com and 8449prayer.com, now forward here. Its company formation is in progress; until it is complete, the service is operated by its founders, who are the controller of the information described in this policy. We will add the registered company's name, state and address here as soon as formation is complete.
For anything to do with your information, write to PrayingWall2911@gmail.com. That address reaches the team responsible for privacy at Praying Wall.
We are a for-profit business, not a registered charity. Payments and gifts to us are not tax-deductible.
2. What we collect
When you send a prayer request
- The name or preferred name you give us
- Your email address, if you provide one — required if you ask us to publish your request
- The language you pray in
- Your age band (18 or older, or 16 to 17)
- Your faith or denomination, only if you choose to give it — the field is optional
- The request itself, in your own words
- Your sharing choice: private, anonymous, or with your first name
- Technical information: IP address, approximate time, and general device information
When you create an account
- Your email address, and a password — which is stored by our sign-in provider in scrambled (hashed) form that we cannot read. If you sign in with Google instead, we receive your name and email address from Google, not your Google password.
- The display name you choose
- Your age group (16 to 17, or 18 and older). It cannot be changed later, and if you are under 18 anything you share publicly is anonymous.
- Your faith or denomination and your language, only if you choose to give them
- Your plan (Free or Premium), whether you are an approved prayer warrior, and your account status
- When you agreed to this policy, and which version you agreed to
- Technical sign-in information kept by our sign-in provider: when the account was created and last signed in, and the IP address used
When you apply to be a prayer warrior
Applications are stored in our database (Google Firebase) and reviewed by our admins. If you are approved before you have an account, we keep a note of your email so the badge is applied when you create one.
- Your full name, email address and country
- Your denomination, the languages you can pray in, and your home church if you give one
- A pastor or church leader as a reference, if you give one
- Your answer about why you want to serve, and your confirmations regarding age, the Apostles' Creed and confidentiality
When you visit the site
Our hosting provider, Netlify, receives the technical information any website receives in order to deliver and secure it: your IP address, browser and device type, the pages requested, and the time.
Our pages load their fonts, images and code from our own site. Unless you agree to visit analytics (below), no visit is reported to Google, to an advertising network, or to any other third party by our pages.
Visit analytics (only if you agree)
To learn which parts of Praying Wall help people pray, we use Google Analytics. It runs only if you choose "Yes" in the small box that appears on your first visit. If you choose "No thanks", or simply ignore the box, nothing is sent. You can change your mind at any time from "Analytics choices" at the bottom of every page; saying no later also removes the analytics cookies from your browser. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we treat that as "no".
If you agree, Google Analytics receives:
- which public page you visited, without anything after the "?" in the address (so never a private link or the number of a post)
- things you did, as simple labels: for example that a prayer request was sent (and whether it was private, anonymous or named, and the language of the screen), that someone prayed, said Amen, commented, shared, used a translation, joined a community, or watched the Daily Word video
- your screen language, light or dark theme, text size, and whether you are signed in (yes or no)
- the technical details Google Analytics gathers itself: browser, device, approximate region and city, how you arrived, how long you stayed and how far you scrolled
It never receives what anyone wrote, any name, email or account, or the page title. Visits to the Addiction Recovery, Grief & Loss, and Anxiety, Depression & Peace communities are reported only as "a community page", and we never report that someone opened our crisis help. These pages are never measured at all: your account, your Prayer List, profiles and friends, Prayer Circles, your private request page, and our staff portal.
Persecution Protection Rule. If you are connecting from a country on our protected list, Google Analytics is never loaded, whatever you choose.
Google's advertising features and its cross-device "signals" are switched off for Praying Wall. Google processes this information on our behalf and states that it does not store visitors' IP addresses for Analytics. We use these reports only in totals, to improve the site.
When you use the prayer wall
- When you press "I prayed for this": a random identifier created in your browser, so we count one prayer per person rather than forty from the same person, together with a scrambled (one-way hashed) form of your IP address and the time
- If you are an approved prayer warrior and press "I prayed" on your prayer list: your account identifier, so each warrior counts once
- When you report a post: the reason and any note you write, the time, your IP address, and a scrambled form of your browser's random identifier. Our moderation team sees reports.
- We also keep short-lived counts per connection to stop automated abuse. These expire within hours.
- When you press "Amen": the same kind of random identifier (or your account, if signed in), so it counts once.
- When you comment: the name you give (or your account name and badge, if signed in) and your words are shown publicly with the post. We also keep your IP address and a scrambled form of your browser's identifier to deal with abuse. Comments from guests, and any comment with links, emails, phone numbers or crisis words, are held for our team to read first. A comment that someone reports is hidden until our team has read it. If you wrote a comment, you can remove it yourself from the device you wrote it on, unless it has been reported or hidden. Only Prayer Warriors and staff may comment on requests from people aged 16–17.
- If you have signed in on a device, the wall recognises you so your prayers and comments count as yours. For that, your browser loads our sign-in code from our own site and talks to Google Firebase. Guests who have never signed in on the device do not load it.
- The Share buttons are plain links. Nothing from Facebook, X, WhatsApp or any other network loads on our pages; a network is contacted only if you choose to share there, and then under its own privacy policy.
The wall is loaded from our own address (prayingwall.com). Our host relays it to our database provider, Google Firebase; your browser does not contact Google to show the wall.
Your Prayer List and notices
- Your Prayer List. If you have an account and press "Add to my list", we keep a private record that you follow that prayer, and on which day you last pressed "Pray today". Only you can see your list. The person who asked sees only how many people keep their prayer on a list — never who.
- Your own requests. If you send a request while signed in, or later open your private link while signed in, the request is linked to your account so it appears on your Prayer List and you are told when people pray.
- "Someone prayed for you" notices. When people pray for a request linked to your account, we keep a notice for you with how many prayed in that hour and, where our host tells us, the countries they prayed from. A notice never contains a name or anything else that identifies the person who prayed. Notices are kept for up to 90 days.
- The country of a visitor. Our host, Netlify, tells our server which country a visitor is in, from their connection. We use it only for the notices above and for the protection described in section 5. We do not store it against you or your prayers.
- Answered prayer. If you mark your request answered, people who followed it or prayed for it while signed in are told it was answered. A testimony you write is reviewed by our team before it appears on the wall, like a comment.
Prayer Lists and notices cannot be read from a browser at all, not even your own; our server reads them only for the signed-in person they belong to.
The Daily Word
When "Will You Answer the Call?" has been on your screen for a moment, we count one reader for that day's word, and when you press Amen we count it once. To count each person only once, we keep a scrambled (one-way hashed) form of your browser's random identifier for that word — or your account, if you are signed in, for Amen. Nothing else about you is kept, and view records are deleted after 40 days.
Daily Word videos. Some Daily Words have a video on our YouTube channel. To show which video goes with which day, our host reads our channel's public list of videos; your browser does not contact YouTube for this. Nothing is loaded from YouTube until you press play. When you do, the video plays from YouTube in its privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com), and YouTube's own privacy policy applies to what happens next.
Prayer Circles
A Prayer Circle is a private group you join by invitation. When you host or join one, we store the circle's name and description, who its members are (by display name), the prayers shared in it, and a mark each time a member taps "I prayed". Only the members of a circle can see what is in it. Someone with an invite link sees only the circle's name, its host's display name and how many members it has until they join. We record nothing about where circle members are.
Our staff do not read circles. They see a prayer from a circle only when a member reports it, or when our safety check finds words suggesting someone may be in danger; in those cases they see that one prayer, its writer's display name and the circle's name, so a person can respond. If you report a circle itself, staff see the circle's name, host and size, and your note.
If a host removes a prayer, its words are deleted. If you delete your account, your prayers in circles are emptied and no longer carry your name, you are removed from the circles you joined, and any circle you host is closed. Prayer Circles are for members aged 18 or over.
Stepping away from someone, and resting from their posts
You can "step away" from another member (block them) or "rest from their posts" for 30 days (mute them). We keep a private list of who you have chosen, used only to carry out your choice: for now, their prayers are hidden from you in Prayer Circles, and if you host a circle they cannot join it through your invite link. Only you can see your list, from your account page, and the people on it are never told. The list is deleted with your account.
To keep people safe, our screening refuses posts in Prayer Circles that ask for money or gifts, try to move someone off Praying Wall, ask for someone's age, photos, name or whereabouts, or threaten anyone. When a post is refused because it may be grooming, an attempt to locate someone, or a threat, the words and the member who wrote them are sent to our safety team, who may restrict that account.
The world map and visits
Our world map shows, for each country, how many prayer requests were sent, how many prayers were offered and how many visits we had. To make it, we add one to a running total for your country when you send a request, pray, or visit — your country as our web host reports it for your connection, never a town or an address. We count a visit once per day for each browser, using the same random identifier the prayer wall uses; the record that prevents double counting holds a scrambled form of that identifier and nothing else, not even the country, and is deleted after a few days. The totals contain no information about any person.
For countries under our Persecution Protection Rule, the map never shows a figure. It shows only "fewer than 10" or "10 or more", refreshed once a day, and our own private count for such a country stops at ten.
Your private request link
When you send a request, we give you a private link showing whether it has been shared and how many people and prayer warriors have prayed. Anyone who has the link can see that page, so keep it to yourself. We store only a scrambled form of the link, not the link itself.
When you write to us as a supporter or partner
- Your name, email address, organisation if given, and your message
3. Sensitive information, and why this section matters
Prayer requests are not ordinary data. What you write may reveal your religious beliefs, your health, your family circumstances, or a crisis you are living through. Under the UK and EU General Data Protection Regulation this is special category data and carries the strongest protections in law.
We handle it on the basis of your explicit consent, given when you choose how your request may be shared and send it to us. You can withdraw that consent at any time by writing to us, and we will remove the request.
We also process a limited amount of information on the basis of our legitimate interest in keeping people safe — specifically, keeping a record of who submitted what, so that abusive, threatening or fraudulent submissions can be traced and stopped.
4. What we do with it
- We pray. Our prayer team reads every request and prays over it.
- We review. Every request is checked by a moderator before it could appear anywhere public.
- We publish, only if you chose that. See section 5.
- We reply, if you left an email and asked us to.
- We count. We record that a prayer was prayed, so the person who asked can see it.
- We protect people. We use what we hold to identify and stop abuse.
We do not use your prayer request to advertise to you, and we do not build advertising profiles.
5. What appears in public, and what never does
Requests are private by default. A request appears on our public wall only when all of the following are true:
- You chose "share anonymously" or "share with my first name" when you submitted it
- A moderator has reviewed and approved it
- It has not been flagged as a crisis
If you chose anonymous, no name is shown. If you chose to share your first name, only your first name is shown — never your surname, email, location or contact details.
If you are 16 or 17, your request can be kept private or shared anonymously. It will never be published with your name.
Where prayer is dangerous. If you write to us from a country where Christians face serious persecution (we use the Open Doors World Watch List, and our list only ever grows), your request is always shown anonymously whatever you choose, your IP address is not stored with your request, comment, report or application, and nobody is ever told that a prayer came from your country — you are shown only as "someone".
Crisis requests are never published, whatever sharing option was selected. Where a request suggests someone may be in danger, it is routed to a named member of our team rather than to the public wall or the general prayer feed.
6. Anonymous does not mean unknown to us
We want to be direct about this, because it matters and because burying it would be wrong.
When a request is shown anonymously on our wall, it is anonymous to the public. It is not anonymous to us. We keep the email address and technical information associated with every submission, including anonymous ones.
We do this for one reason: a public wall where submissions cannot be traced is a public wall that will be used to abuse, threaten and defame people. Keeping that record is how we protect the people who read it and the people named in it. We do not use it for any other purpose, and access is limited to the moderators listed in section 8.
7. Who else sees your information
We never sell your information and we never pass it to anyone for their own marketing.
We use service providers who process information on our behalf, under contract and on our instructions:
- Netlify — website hosting and form delivery
- Google (Gmail) — our email
- Google Firebase — accounts, sign-in and our database. Firebase also sends the emails that verify your address and reset your password.
- Google Cloud Translation — translating requests and comments, so our team can read everything and so every reader can read the wall in their own language. See below.
- Google Analytics — visit analytics, only for visitors who agree to it. See "Visit analytics" in section 2.
When the prayer wall launches, we may add Render (server connections). When Premium membership launches, we will name our payment processor here before we take any payment.
We may disclose information where the law requires it, or where we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to prevent serious harm to someone.
Translation
Praying Wall is open to every language, and so is its wall. Requests and comments are translated automatically by Google Cloud Translation, which processes the text on our behalf, under contract and on our instructions, exactly as our other providers do. It happens for two reasons.
- So our team can read everything. Every request and comment written in a language other than English is translated into English for our moderators. A request we cannot read is a request we cannot moderate, and translation is how a crisis written in one language is caught by a team that reads another. This is a safety measure before it is a convenience.
- So everyone can pray for everyone. A request you choose to share on the public wall, and comments shown there, are translated into the language each reader has chosen. Only words already approved for the public wall are translated for readers. A private request is never translated for readers.
We want to be plain about what that means, because burying it would be wrong. Your words are processed on Google's servers. Google does not own them, does not sell them, and no person there reads them.
So that the same words are not sent to Google again and again, we keep each translation alongside the original in our own database, and treat it exactly as we treat the original: it is shown only where the original may be shown, it is replaced if the original is changed, and it is deleted when the original is deleted.
Your original text is always kept exactly as you wrote it. A machine translation is never presented as your own words: every translated request and comment on the wall is labelled with the language it was written in, and the original is always one tap away.
If you would rather your request or comment were not translated for readers, write to us at PrayingWall2911@gmail.com and say so.
8. Who can see requests inside Praying Wall
Full requests, including private ones and contact details, can be seen only by our moderation team. Approved prayer warriors see requests in order to pray over them and are bound by a written confidentiality undertaking given when they apply.
Warrior applications are reviewed by a designated member of our team.
9. Where your information is held
Our services are hosted in the United States. If you write to us from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to and stored there, where privacy laws differ from those in your country. Where required, we rely on your explicit consent and on standard contractual clauses with our providers for these transfers.
10. How long we keep it
We keep information only as long as it serves the purpose we collected it for, and then delete it. You can ask us to delete anything sooner.
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Your account | While it is open. When you ask us to delete it, within 90 days. Records we must keep for safety (below) follow their own period. |
| Private prayer requests | If you have an account, while it is active and 90 days after. If sent without an account, 12 months. |
| Requests shown on the public wall | 12 months, then removed. Sooner if you ask. |
| Safeguarding and moderation records — who submitted what, reports, and our decisions | 7 years, with access restricted to our moderation team |
| Prayer warrior applications | While the person serves and 12 months after. Declined applications, 12 months. |
| Messages from supporters and partners | 24 months after our last contact |
| Visit records, once we begin keeping them | 24 months |
| Individual "I prayed" records | 24 months. The running totals are kept. |
| Your Prayer List | While your account is open. A prayer that leaves the wall leaves your list. Deleted with your account. |
| Notices | Up to 90 days. Deleted with your account. |
| Reports on wall posts | 7 years, with the moderation records |
| Comments | While the post is on the wall and 12 months after. Removed comments are kept with the moderation records. |
11. Your rights
Wherever you live, you may ask us to:
- Tell you what we hold about you, and give you a copy
- Correct anything that is wrong
- Delete what we hold, including a request you would rather we no longer had
- Stop using your information in a particular way, or withdraw your consent
- Take your information to another service, where that applies
If you are in the UK or EU, you also have the right to complain to your data protection authority. If you are in California, you have rights under the CCPA and CPRA, including the right to know and the right to delete. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined under California law.
If you have an account, you can edit your profile and ask for deletion yourself on your account page. Otherwise, or for anything else, write to PrayingWall2911@gmail.com. We will respond within 30 days. We will not ask you to justify a deletion request.
12. Children and young people
You must be at least 16 to send a prayer request or create an account, and at least 18 to serve as a prayer warrior. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child under 16 has sent us information, write to us and we will delete it.
13. What we store in your browser
We do not use advertising cookies. We store a small amount of information in your own browser. Apart from the sign-in token and the random identifier described below, none of it is sent to us:
- Your language choice, so the site opens the way you left it
- Your light or dark theme choice, if you change it from your device's setting
- Your text size, if you change it with the "Aa" button
- Which Daily Words you have read and said Amen to here, so they are counted once
- The date of your last counted visit, so a visit is counted once a day
- Your answer to the visit-analytics question, so we don't ask again
- If you sign in, a sign-in token from Firebase that keeps you signed in on that device until you sign out
If you send a request without being signed in, we keep its private link in your browser so that, if you create an account on this device, the request can become yours. The link is sent to us once, when you sign in, and then removed from your browser.
We also store a random identifier in your browser, so we can count one visit a day and, if you use the prayer wall, one prayer per person, and lists of the requests you have prayed for or reported, so the buttons look right when you come back. The identifier is sent with a visit, a prayer or a report so it can be counted once; the lists never leave your browser.
If you agree to visit analytics, Google Analytics also sets its own cookies on our site (their names begin with "_ga") to tell one visit from the next. They are removed if you later choose "No thanks".
You can clear these at any time in your browser settings. Nothing breaks if you do.
14. Security
We protect your information with encryption in transit, access controls limiting who on our team can see what, and server-side rules preventing requests from being read or altered by anyone who should not. No system is perfect, and we will not pretend otherwise. If a breach affects you, we will tell you.
15. If you are in crisis
Please do not wait for a prayer request to be answered. In the United States, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, free and at any hour; for Spanish, press 2 or text AYUDA to 988. Outside the United States, findahelpline.com lists verified helplines in over 175 countries. If someone is in immediate danger, call your local emergency number.
16. Changes
If we change this policy in a way that materially affects you, we will say so on this page and, where we hold your email, write to you. We will not apply a new use to information you already gave us without asking first.