Privacy Policy

So7ba (صُحبة) - Your Digital Life Companion

Effective Date: March 26, 2026
Last Updated: October 26, 2026

1. Introduction

So7ba ("we," "us," "our") is committed to protecting your privacy and personal data. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and protect your information when you use the So7ba mobile application and related services (the "Service").

We designed So7ba with privacy at its core. We believe your personal growth journey is yours, and we respect your right to control who sees it.

This policy complies with applicable data protection laws, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Saudi Arabia Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL), the UAE Federal Data Protection Law, and the Egypt Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA).

Data Controller:
So7ba
Email: support@so7ba.com
Website: so7ba.com

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information You Provide Directly

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

2.3 Information From Third Parties

Sign in with Apple, in more detail.

• Private relay. If you chose "Hide My Email", we only ever see the relay address; mail we send to it is passed on to you by Apple. If you turn forwarding off, Apple tells us and we stop sending you the weekly review email there (§3.4). If you stop using your Apple ID with So7ba, or delete your Apple account, Apple stops forwarding that address altogether: we then turn the weekly review email off, and it cannot be turned on again for that address until you sign in with Apple again.
• No address, or one Apple has not verified. Your So7ba account then gets an address we make up, ending in .invalid, which never receives mail. An address Apple gave but did not verify stays with your Apple sign-in and is not used as your account's address.
• An address that already has a So7ba account. We link Apple to that account only when Apple has verified the address, it is not a relay address, and the account's own address is verified. Otherwise we ask you to sign in with your password first.
• The Apple token is kept for one purpose only: to end So7ba's access to your Apple sign-in when your account is deleted. If you sign in with Apple both on an iPhone and on Android, each gives So7ba a token of its own: we keep the newest on your sign-in and set the older one aside, unused, so that it can be sent back too. When the deletion is carried out we send every token we hold back to Apple to revoke it — and keep trying until Apple confirms, for at most 30 days (or 50 attempts) — then erase it. If Apple has still not confirmed by then, we erase the token anyway, and you can end So7ba's access yourself in your Apple ID settings (Sign in with Apple → So7ba → Stop using). It is not used for anything else. Because it must be sent back to Apple as it is, it is stored as Apple gave it, not hashed (§7.1).
• If you stop using your Apple ID with So7ba (in your Apple ID settings), Apple tells us and we remove the Apple sign-in from your account, with its token. Any token set aside from your other device is dropped too, since Apple has ended that access. If Apple was your only way in, the account's sessions are ended; the account itself is never deleted, and signing in with Apple again brings you back to it — for that, we keep your Apple user ID on the account, and it is erased when your account is deleted. If you deleted your Apple account, that Apple ID cannot sign in again: if it was your only way in, write to support@so7ba.com.
• On iPhone, the app keeps your Apple user ID in the phone's secure storage so it can ask Apple, when it opens, whether you still use Apple with So7ba, and sign you out if you do not.

Google Sign-In follows the same care: we link Google to an existing So7ba account only when Google has verified the address and is the provider of that address (a Gmail address, or your organisation's own Google domain), the account's address is verified, and the account has no other Google sign-in; otherwise we ask you to sign in with your password first. If Google shares no address, or one it has not verified, your new account gets an address we make up, ending in .invalid, which never receives mail.

2.4 Sensitive Data

So7ba may process certain categories of sensitive personal data:

• Religious practice data: If you create goals related to religious/spiritual practices (e.g., prayer, Quran reading), this data is treated with the highest level of privacy protection. A new journey that we recognise as worship starts visible to your companions only («صُحبتي»), not to everyone, even though other new journeys start visible to everyone in So7ba (§4.1). It becomes visible to more people only if you choose that, on the plan screen or later in the journey's settings. We recognise a worship journey from its category, or from words of worship in its title, its routine or its steps (for example prayer, fasting, the Quran, the mosque, Ramadan) — not from its intention; one we do not recognise starts like any other new journey, so check the audience on the plan screen before you start. It is never used for social comparison.
• Health-related data: If you create health or wellness goals, this data receives enhanced privacy protections.
• What matters to you («ما يهمّك»): picking "faith" or "health" says something about you. That is why these choices are optional, seen by you alone, never sent to any AI provider, and erased when your account is deleted (§2.1).

We process sensitive data only with your explicit consent and solely for the purpose of providing the Service to you.

3. How We Use Your Information

3.1 Service Delivery

• Creating and managing your account
• Providing goal management, time planning, and progress tracking
• Enabling social features (companions, circles, feed, messaging)
• Syncing with your calendar
• Delivering push notifications and reminders, at sensible hours in your time zone (§8.1, quiet hours)
• Showing ideas for a first journey on the Today screen, picked on your phone from our own catalog and from what matters to you, if you chose anything
• Ordering your own companion suggestions, using your journeys and — if you picked any — what matters to you. Other people's interests are never read for this, and yours never move you up or down in anyone else's list. Someone you dismissed from your suggestions is not suggested to you again — not in any list that suggests people to you («قد تعرفهم» / "You May Know" included), not in a notice

3.2 AI-Powered Personalization

While the AI Companion is on — it is on from the start, until you switch it off (§11.4) — we use your data to:

• Turn the sentence you write into a journey's plan. This is how every new journey of yours starts
• Generate personalized activity and goal recommendations
• Suggest compatible companions with shared interests
• Create weekly progress digests and insights
• Provide gentle, contextual encouragement

Legal Basis: Your consent, which you can withdraw at any time by switching the AI Companion off. With it off a new journey cannot be started from your own sentence, because such a journey is created with the companion; a journey from one of our catalog's ideas can still be started (§11.1), and the journeys you already have keep working (§11.4).

3.3 Safety & Security

• Detecting and preventing fraud, abuse, and violations of our Terms
• Protecting users from harassment and harmful content
• Maintaining the integrity and security of the Service
• Verifying accounts and preventing unauthorized access

Legal Basis: Legitimate interest in maintaining a safe platform.

3.4 Communications

• Sending service-related notifications (security alerts, account updates)
• Delivering feature announcements and updates
• Responding to your support requests
• Your weekly review by email — only if you ask for it. It is off until you turn on «مراجعتي الأسبوعية بالبريد» in Settings → Notifications, and it can only be turned on for a real email address you have confirmed. When your companion writes your weekly review (on Friday evening, your local time — or, when we could not reach you then, later until your Saturday ends, so the email may arrive at night), we email it to you: a greeting with your display name and the review's text — the same words, written by the AI, that you see on the review page in the app; the AI writes them from counts of your week and is not given your journeys' names. It is sent through Resend (§4.2), and only while the AI Companion is on, while your address is confirmed and real, while no account deletion is waiting, and — for an Apple relay address — while Apple still forwards it (your Apple sign-in stands and forwarding is on). Every email has a link to stop it (it works for a year after that email), and email apps can show a one-tap "Unsubscribe" button that does the same; you can also turn it off in the same setting at any time. Stopping it does not touch your weekly review in the app

Legal Basis: Performance of contract; legitimate interest for service communications; your consent for the weekly review email, which you withdraw by stopping it.

3.5 Improvement & Analytics

• Understanding how features are used to improve the Service, from our own usage statistics (§2.2) — counted on our servers, not by Google or any analytics company
• Reading usage patterns as totals: usage statistics and error reports are stored with your account id (so that we can delete them, export them and stop them when you ask), but we read them only as totals per day or per week, with no names; nothing compares one person with another
• Fixing bugs and improving stability, from the error reports the app sends to our own servers (§2.2). The app does not include Firebase Analytics or Firebase Crashlytics (§10.2)

Legal Basis: Legitimate interest in improving our Service. You can object at any time by turning off «إحصاءات الاستخدام» in Settings → Privacy: that stops usage statistics and error reports and deletes what we had stored. Activity days (§2.2) are needed to run the service and stay.

3.6 Legal Compliance

• Complying with applicable laws and regulations
• Responding to lawful requests from authorities
• Establishing, exercising, or defending legal claims

Legal Basis: Legal obligation; legitimate interest.

4. How We Share Your Information

4.1 With Other Users

Based on your privacy settings, other users may see:

• Your profile information (name, username, bio, avatar)
• Your posts and progress updates (per your visibility settings: Public, Companions-only, or Private)
• Your goals (each journey's own audience) — see "Who sees a new journey" below
• How many companions you have, on your profile (which follows «الخصوصية»); the list itself is not shown to others. A list that suggests people may say how many companions you share with someone — never which ones. If you choose «الصُحبة فقط», the number of companions you share with anyone shows as 0 on «مقترحون لك» ("Suggested for you"), the strip on the home screen and the companions page, and these lists do not rank you by it; «قد تعرفهم» ("You May Know") suggests the companions of your companions, and only people whose «الخصوصية» is «الجميع». If you choose «أنا فقط», you are on no list that suggests people — «مقترحون لك» ("Suggested for you"), the strip on the home screen, the companions page, «قد تعرفهم» and our AI's suggestions — nobody is suggested to anyone through you, and you are never counted as a shared companion
• When our AI suggests you to someone as a possible companion, the line on the card may name one of your journeys — only while that journey is visible to everyone in So7ba (at «الجميع», not deleted, and your «الخصوصية» at «الجميع»). Otherwise the line names no journey
• In a journey's room, how many people chose each option of a poll. Who chose what is shown only if the person who started the poll turned names on — and then only to the room's members, never to people who can merely read the room. A member who joined anonymously appears as "Anonymous" to everyone except the journey's owner.

You control what others see through your privacy settings.

Who sees a new journey. Every journey has its own audience, shown on the plan screen above "ابدأ الرحلة" before anything is created: «الجميع» (everyone), «صُحبتي» (my companions), «مجموعة من صُحبتي» (some of my companions) or «أنا فقط» (only me).

• A new journey starts at «الجميع»: visible to everyone in So7ba (signed-in people; nothing is published outside the app). The gender preferences still apply — yours (for example "same gender only") and theirs: in the feed and the list of trending journeys a journey is shown to someone, and they can join it and talk in its room, only when both preferences allow it. Joining a journey's room asks only your preference and its owner's (and the room's host's, for a meetup filed in someone's journey room), so a room can have members of both genders. An instant meetup, where people meet in person, also asks the preference of everyone already coming. And if there is a block between you and someone coming to a meetup — whoever made it — you cannot join that meetup by any way in, and the app only says that you cannot join. Your profile lists the same journeys: to someone who is not your companion, the ones at «الجميع» (never an instant meetup), and only when your gender preference allows them, as in the feed; to your companions, the ones at «صُحبتي» too. If you choose another audience, the app remembers it for your next journey.
• A journey we recognise as worship (§2.4) starts at «صُحبتي» (your companions only) — or narrower, if that is what you chose before. An instant meetup («لقاء الآن» in the app), which carries a place, starts with your companions too, as before.
• The intention (النية) of a journey is shown with it to everyone who can see the journey (§11.1). Because it starts as the sentence you wrote, a journey left at «الجميع» shows that sentence to everyone in So7ba unless you change or remove it before you start.
• You can change the audience on the plan screen before you start, and at any time afterwards in the journey's settings. There is no separate setting for all your goals: each journey keeps the audience you chose for it.

«الخصوصية» (privacy), in Settings → Privacy, starts at «الجميع» (everyone). Its two other choices only ever narrow what each journey and post allows:

• «الصُحبة فقط» (companions only) closes your profile to people who are not your companions, and takes your journeys and posts off the places where those people come across them — feeds, hashtag pages, trending, search and suggestions — whatever each journey or post says, also when someone else shares them. Your posts also leave the saved lists («المحفوظات») of people who are not your companions (the members of a journey's room keep what you wrote in that room). What you write in someone else's journey room — messages, updates, polls, «مَن معي؟» requests, replies and words in its discussion — is read only by that room's members and your companions; in your own journey's room each item keeps its own audience. A meetup you create in someone else's journey room is on that room's list of meetups only for its members, your companions and the people coming to it; it still opens from its link. Only your companions — and, for something you wrote in a journey's room, that room's members — can share your posts. A link still opens: someone with a link to your journey can open it and join it, and a post opened by its address still opens for whoever its own audience allows.
• «أنا فقط» (only me) goes further: your profile is closed to everyone, your companions too, and nobody but you sees your posts or journeys, except three groups of people. First, the people who joined one of your journeys: they keep it, its room and its steps (a step at «أنا فقط» stays yours alone), and you can still accept someone's request to join one of your journeys. Second, the members of a journey's room you write in — the journey's owner, its participants and the owners of its copies: they read what you write there (your messages, polls, «مَن معي؟» requests, your replies anywhere in its thread — under its messages and under its updates — and your words in its discussion), and an update of yours only if its own audience includes them; people who only look at a public journey see none of it. Your name on the reactions and «أنا معك» you leave on a journey's posts, on your «شجّع» of a journey, and on a room's members list is shown only to that room's members: others see «مجهول» in its place, and the numbers stay the same. Your name and photo on the reactions you leave on a post that is not part of a journey — a post on the home feed, or a share — are shown only to you and the person who posted it: everyone else sees «مجهول» in their place, and the numbers stay the same. On a meetup's card, your name and photo among «مَن سيأتي» are shown only to the meetup's owner and the people who joined it: others see «مجهول», and the number coming stays the same. Your words, though, carry your name: a reply you write under someone else's post that is not part of a journey shows your name and photo to everyone who can read that post. Third, the people you invite to one of your journeys yourself, and whoever holds a link you shared to one (next point). A post you share is seen by nobody else: its author is not told, and its share count does not change.
• A link you shared to one of your journeys keeps working, whatever «الخصوصية» says. Anyone signed in who holds it sees the journey's name, category and rhythm, your name and photo, and how many people take part — and its description too, unless the journey is at «أنا فقط» — and can join it (or ask to, when it asks first) while it takes new people and both gender preferences allow it. Someone you blocked, or who blocked you, sees nothing through it. You can stop a link from the share sheet («إيقاف هذا الرابط وإنشاء رابط جديد»): it stops working at once for everyone, and the sheet gives you a new link to share. A link to a journey that takes nobody new right now (joining switched off, full, or a meetup that has ended) opens nothing for people who are not in it. A finished journey's link still shows it — as finished, with no way to join — unless its joining was switched off. A request someone sends through your link stays in their «طلبات انضمامك» while it waits, also under «أنا فقط», and they can withdraw it there. You can accept it whatever the journey's audience says, also after you stopped the link; a block, either gender preference, joining switched off, and a full or finished journey still refuse.
• Closing your profile does not change what your own AI companion knows: it still uses your journeys at «الجميع» for your own answers, nudges, the evening question and the people it suggests to you (§11.1). But our AI no longer suggests you to other people as a companion; a suggestion made before you closed your profile leaves their list within 48 hours at most, and at once if you chose «أنا فقط».
• Your name and photo stay visible whatever «الخصوصية» says — on your profile page, even when it is closed, and in search — and your bio is shown only where your profile is open. A name search needs at least two letters. Your companions find you by name whatever either person's gender preference says. On the lists that suggest people you appear under «الجميع»; under «الصُحبة فقط» on all of them except «قد تعرفهم» (and our AI makes no new suggestion of you); under «أنا فقط» on none.
• When you narrow «الخصوصية», our servers stop showing your items at once, but other people's phones may keep a copy they already loaded for up to 10–12 minutes (the home feed's saved copy up to 10, the discovery lists up to 12). Every tap on such a copy is refused, and nothing new reaches them.

Your gender preference («فلترة حسب الجنس»), in Settings → Privacy, is «الكل» (everyone, the default) or «نفس الجنس فقط» (same gender only). With «نفس الجنس فقط»:

• your posts are kept off the home feed, «المحفوظات», hashtag pages and your profile's posts list of people your choice leaves out, and from inside the shares they see there — except for your companions. Your journeys leave their «المحفوظات» too, except your companions' (and come back there if you change your choice). A link to a post still opens it;
• what you write in a journey's room — messages, updates, polls, «مَن معي؟» requests, replies and your words in its discussion — does not reach people who only look at the room and whom your choice leaves out, except your companions. This holds in your own journey's room too. And in a journey you joined, they do not see you on its list of members either (no line that you joined, no photo, and you are not in the numbers its room or its link's page shows them). Your choice hides none of it from the room's members: the journey's owner, its participants and the owners of its copies (and, in a meetup's own chat, the people coming to it; someone coming to a meetup filed in a journey's room is not, for that, a member of the journey's room). A link to one of them still opens it;
• the lists of who reacted, voted or encouraged show you only people of your own gender, your companions and «مجهول» rows, and the numbers stay the same;
• when someone your choice leaves out mentions you, the mention shows as plain text, with no link to you and no photo;
• outside the messages of a journey's room and its discussion, nobody your choice leaves out can reply to your comment;
• in a journey's discussion, someone your choice leaves out can reply to your words only if they are a member of that journey's room;
• in a journey's room, members may react to, encourage («شجّع») and reply to your messages, but you get no notice of the messages, polls, replies or reactions of people your choice leaves out;
• you get no notice when someone your choice leaves out shares progress in a journey's room, leaves your journey, or finishes their copy of it;
• a member who joined your journey before you chose «نفس الجنس فقط» stays a member, and can no longer write in your journey's discussion;
• to join a meetup, the preferences of everyone already coming must allow it too, each way.

Your companions find you by name in search whatever your preference. If you change your gender preference, people who are already your companions keep seeing your posts, and you theirs; messages, hearts and replies to you, and joining your journeys, follow your new preference. A room someone already has open keeps showing what you wrote there until their app loads it again.

4.2 With Service Providers

We share data with trusted service providers who help us operate the Service:

All service providers are bound by data processing agreements and are required to protect your data.

4.3 We Do NOT:

• Sell your personal data to third parties
• Share your data with advertisers
• Use your content for advertising purposes
• Share your private messages with anyone except as required by law
• Send private or companions-only content for automated safety review — only posts you published publicly are checked (see §11.1)
• Share religious or health goal data with any third party, except in the cases named in §11.1 and nowhere else: a post about one that you published publicly is checked for safety like any other public post; the sentence you write goes to DeepSeek when you start a journey — every new journey starts that way; and a journey's title goes to it when you ask your companion a question, when a milestone message celebrates that journey, and in the companion's other messages as §11.1 lists — the categories are not carved out, because a carve-out could not tell "lose 10 kg" from "run 42 km" and would have removed the feature from both. Turning the AI companion off in Settings stops all of it (§11.1, §11.4)
• Create public leaderboards or comparisons between users

4.4 Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information if required to:

• Comply with applicable law, regulation, or legal process
• Respond to lawful requests from public authorities
• Protect the rights, property, or safety of So7ba, our users, or the public
• Detect, prevent, or address fraud, security, or technical issues

4.5 Business Transfers

If So7ba is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your data may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you via the app or email before your data is subject to a different privacy policy.

5. International Data Transfers

5.1 Where We Store Data

Your data is primarily stored on servers operated by Hetzner Cloud (Falkenstein, Germany) and Cloudflare. These servers are located in the European Union, which may be outside your country of residence.

5.2 Transfer Safeguards

When we transfer data internationally, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place:

• Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by relevant authorities
• Data processing agreements with all service providers
• Encryption of data in transit and at rest

5.3 Regional Requirements

• Saudi Arabia (PDPL): We conduct transfer risk assessments as required by SDAIA guidelines before transferring personal data outside the Kingdom.
• UAE: We comply with transfer requirements under the Federal Data Protection Law.
• Egypt (PDPA): We obtain necessary approvals for cross-border data transfers as required.
• EU/EEA (GDPR): We rely on SCCs and other approved transfer mechanisms.

6. Data Retention

6.1 Active Accounts

We retain your data for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the Service.

6.2 Deleted Content

• Posts and content you delete: Removed from active systems within 30 days. Backup copies may persist for up to 90 days.
• Messages you delete: Removed from your view immediately. If deleted "for everyone," removed from all participants within 30 days.
• Polls you delete: everyone's votes on them are erased at once.

6.3 Deleted Accounts

When you delete your account:

• The deletion is scheduled for 30 days later. Until then your account keeps working and you can cancel the deletion from the app; when the 30 days end, the deletion is carried out
• When the deletion is carried out, your account is anonymised — your name, username, email, phone number, photo, bio, date of birth and the rest of your profile are removed from it — your photos, videos and other files are deleted from storage, and what belongs to you alone is erased: your sessions and devices, your sign-in methods and passkeys, your companions, blocks and mutes, your saves, hearts and poll votes, your time boxes, habits and vision boards, your weekly reviews, the facts the AI wrote about you, your calendar connection and the events it copied, your notifications, and the rest of the records that are only yours
• Just before that, each of your own meetups that is still open (its time not passed) is ended, and the people coming to it are told only that a meetup they were going to has ended — the notice names neither the meetup nor you. A meetup you were only coming to is not ended: your place in it goes
• What you wrote where other people take part — your posts, comments and journeys, and your messages in conversations — is hidden from everyone at that moment, a direct message included (the other person no longer sees it). The hidden copies stay in our database, attached only to the anonymous account, because they sit inside other people's threads. Reports you made, or that were made about you, are kept as our moderation record
• Backup copies that still hold your data are deleted within 90 days
• Your poll votes are erased, and so are the votes other people cast in polls you started
• Your usage statistics, activity days, error reports, your last-active time and what matters to you («ما يهمّك») are deleted when the deletion is carried out
• If you signed in with Apple, we send Apple's token — every one we hold — back to Apple when the deletion is carried out, to end So7ba's access to your Apple sign-in, and erase it once Apple confirms (§2.3)
• If you tell us why you are leaving, we keep those words for 12 months from when you wrote them, then erase them — also if you cancel the deletion. Once the deletion is carried out they are no longer linked to your name or email (the account is anonymised); if you cancelled, they stay with your account for those 12 months and are part of your data download. Either way we read them only as a list of dates and reasons, to learn what we could do better
• Certain data may be retained longer if required by law (e.g., transaction records, legal compliance)
• Anonymized, aggregated data that cannot identify you may be retained indefinitely for analytics — for example, how many people used So7ba on a given day

6.4 Retention Schedule

7. Data Security

7.1 Technical Measures

• Encryption in transit: All data transmitted between your device and our servers uses TLS/SSL encryption
• Encryption at rest: Passwords are hashed and your So7ba sign-in tokens are stored hashed. Tokens we must hand back to another service — the Sign in with Apple token (§2.3), and a calendar connection's tokens if you connect a calendar — are stored as that service gave them, because a hash could not be handed back. Full-disk encryption of the database volume and encryption of backups are on the pre-production checklist and are not in place yet; this line will say "the database volume and its backups are encrypted" when that is true and not before
• Password security: Passwords are hashed with PBKDF2-SHA256 (100,000 rounds, a random salt for each password) and are never stored in plain text
• Photo and video metadata: Photos and videos you upload are stripped of embedded location and other hidden metadata on our servers before they are stored
• Secure token storage: Authentication tokens are stored in your device's secure storage (Keychain/Keystore)
• Access controls: Strict role-based access to production data

7.2 Organizational Measures

• Regular security assessments
• Limited access to personal data on a need-to-know basis
• Incident response procedures

7.3 Your Responsibilities

• Use a strong, unique password
• Do not share your account credentials
• Enable device security features (screen lock, biometrics)
• Log out on shared devices
• Report suspicious activity immediately

7.4 Security Incidents

In the event of a data breach that poses a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will:

• Notify affected users without undue delay (within 72 hours where required by law)
• Notify relevant supervisory authorities as required
• Take immediate steps to contain and remediate the breach

7.5 Reporting Content or a Person

Every report reaches a person. There is a review queue inside So7ba, and a named reviewer is notified by email the moment a report arrives — reports are not counted and filed away.

• Who reviews: a named member of the So7ba team. While the team is small this is one person, and it is always a person, never an automated decision on its own.
• How long: we aim to look at every report within 48 hours, and at reports of a risk to someone's safety within 24 hours. If we need longer, we will say so.
• What can happen: the content can be hidden or removed, the account can be warned, restricted or closed, and in cases involving a risk to life we may contact local emergency services.
• Content can be hidden before review. If several separate people report the same public post, it is hidden from the feed while it waits for a reviewer, and restored if the report does not hold up. Nothing is deleted by that automatic step. A report from someone the post's author had blocked before they reported — or, for a message in a journey's room, someone the room's host had blocked — still reaches the reviewer, but does not count toward hiding the post before review. A block made after the report does not take the report out.
• You are told what happened to a report you made, and the person reported is told what was decided about their content and why.
• If you disagree with a decision, reply to the notice or write to support@so7ba.com and a person will look at it again.
• You can report a person, or something they wrote, also after you blocked them or they blocked you. «حظر وإبلاغ» (block and report) does both in one step. Every report — of a post, a comment, a message or reply in a journey's room, or a chat — also offers «احظر هذا الشخص أيضاً» (also block this person), unless its writer is shown as «مجهول». Across a block, the app answers the same way whether or not the content still exists, so a report tells you nothing about the other person.
• A post you report leaves every list you see: the journey's room, hashtag pages, profiles, your saved posts and your feed. That includes «مَن معي؟» on your Today page and your circles.

You can also report anything directly to support@so7ba.com without using the in-app button — including on behalf of someone who cannot report it themselves.

8. Your Rights & Choices

8.1 Privacy Controls in the App

You can control:

• «الخصوصية» (privacy): «الجميع» (everyone, the default), «الصُحبة فقط» (companions only) or «أنا فقط» (only me), in Settings → Privacy. What each one does is in §4.1
• Goal visibility: Per-goal privacy settings. A new journey starts visible to everyone in So7ba, a worship journey and an instant meetup with your companions; change it on the plan screen before you start or in the journey's settings at any time (§4.1)
• Usage statistics («إحصاءات الاستخدام»): On or off, in Settings → Privacy. Off stops usage statistics and error reports and deletes what we had stored (§2.2)
• What matters to you («ما يهمّك»): Pick, change or clear it on the empty Today screen or in your profile's edit sheet (§2.1)
• Weekly review by email («مراجعتي الأسبوعية بالبريد»): Off until you turn it on, in Settings → Notifications; stop it there or from any of the emails (§3.4)
• Who can message you («مَن يمكنه مراسلتك»): «أي شخص» (anyone), «صُحبتك فقط» (your companions only, the default) or «لا أحد» (nobody), in Settings → Notifications
• Read receipts («علامات القراءة»), «إظهار أنك متصل» (showing that you are online) and «"يكتب الآن…"» (typing): each is off until you turn it on, in Settings → Notifications, and each works both ways — with yours off, you see nobody's either. Even with them on, you and another person see each other's only when messages could pass both ways between you right now (by both people's choice of who can message them, both gender filters, and no block). With read receipts off, nobody is shown your blue ✓✓ or the time you read a message: a message shows its sender a grey ✓✓ once it reaches your phone — while your app is open, or the next time it loads your chats — whether or not you read it. Because the app is connected only while it is open, a ✓✓ that appeared at once could show that your app is open right now. So the sender sees it appear at that moment only when you both have «إظهار أنك متصل» on and messages could pass both ways between you; otherwise they see the ✓✓ only when their app next loads the chat — for example when they open it, when they come back to the app after it was in the background, or when its connection comes back
• AI features: Enable, disable, or adjust frequency. With AI disabled, a new journey cannot be started from your own sentence until you enable it again; one from our catalog's ideas can (§11.1, §11.4)
• Notification preferences: Granular control per notification type
• Quiet hours: Set times when notifications are silenced. Inside them nothing is pushed except a reminder you set for that time yourself; the notices wait in your notifications list. Notices So7ba sends on its own — the companion's messages, people suggestions, celebrations, «مراجعة أسبوعك جاهزة», a missed day — are also never pushed before 09:00 your local time. For the companion's messages, people suggestions, milestone celebrations and the weekly review, one push may then reach you at the next good moment (09:00, or when your quiet hours end), at most 24 hours later — unless, in the meantime, you switched off the AI Companion or that notice's own switch: then it is not pushed. The rest stay in the list without a push. When your weekly review is ready at 21:00 your local time or later, «مراجعة أسبوعك جاهزة» is not pushed that evening: it waits for the next good moment in the same way (the review itself is in the app at once, and its email, if you turned it on, is sent at once). The evening reflection question and notices about a missed day are never pushed later. Your phone's time zone — or, without one, your country — decides your local time
• Calm mode: Only your reminders reach your phone; everything else waits in the app — notices in your notifications list, messages in your chats
• Gender filter («فلترة حسب الجنس»): «الكل» (the default) or «نفس الجنس فقط», in Settings → Privacy. What «نفس الجنس فقط» does is in §4.1

8.2 Your Data Rights

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have the following rights:

Correcting your gender. Your gender is chosen once — at sign-up, or when you complete your profile — and the app cannot change it. If you chose it by mistake, write to us from the e-mail address on your account (support@so7ba.com — shown under «تواصل معنا» itself, in Settings → «عن التطبيق»: a tap opens your mail app, a long press copies the address), and we will correct it once we have checked the request. If that address is an Apple relay address, we write to it and act on your reply. An account with no e-mail address of its own (the address we make up, ending in .invalid, when Apple or Google shared none or one they had not verified, §2.3) cannot be checked this way yet, because the app has no way to add an address, so we cannot correct its gender for now. From the correction on, every gender preference — yours and other people's — uses the corrected value everywhere; your companions and the journeys you joined stay as they are. We keep a record that support made the correction — who made it and which request it answered — without your gender in it.

8.3 How to Exercise Your Rights

To exercise any of these rights:

• In-app: Use the privacy and account settings
• Email: Contact support@so7ba.com
• We will respond to your request within 30 days (or shorter if required by your jurisdiction's law)
• We may need to verify your identity before processing your request

8.4 Account Data Download

You may request a download of your data through the app settings («Download my data») or by contacting us. We will provide your data in a commonly used electronic format (one zip file). You can request one copy a day; when it is ready we notify you, it stays available to you for two days, and then it is deleted from our servers. The download includes the polls you started and your own votes — never anyone else's votes. It also includes every setting you have (usage statistics, the weekly review email and each AI switch included), what matters to you, the last time you used the app, your usage statistics (with their visit id), your activity days, your error reports (with their fingerprint and when they reached us), when you paused your journeys, your devices (with what the app on each can do), any account-deletion request you made (with its reason — a cancelled one too), and the ways you sign in (the provider; for Apple, the email and name Apple gave, whether it is a relay address and whether forwarding is on; when it was linked and last used) — never a token and never the provider's id for you. It also includes, for each update of this privacy policy, when we emailed you about it and when you closed its card in the app.

9. Children's Privacy

9.1 Age Requirement

So7ba is not intended for children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16.

9.2 Discovery of Child Data

If we discover that we have collected data from a child under 16, we will:

• Delete the data promptly
• Terminate the associated account
• Notify the parent or guardian if contact information is available

9.3 Parental Contact

If you believe a child under 16 has provided us with personal data, please contact us immediately at support@so7ba.com.

10. Cookies & Local Storage

10.1 Mobile App Storage

As a mobile application, So7ba uses:

• Secure Storage: For authentication tokens and sensitive credentials (and, on iPhone after Sign in with Apple, your Apple user ID — §2.3)
• Local Database (Hive): For caching content and improving performance
• Shared Preferences: For non-sensitive app settings and preferences — for example your usage-statistics choice, whether the notification offer was shown, the catalog ideas you already started from (so they are not offered again), and an invitation link you opened before signing in (kept until it is opened, you sign out, or 7 days pass)

Usage statistics and error reports wait in the app's memory until they are sent to our servers; they are not written to the phone's storage.

10.2 Firebase & Analytics

The app uses two Firebase services, and only these:

• Firebase Cloud Messaging: delivering push notifications
• Firebase Remote Config: delivering feature configurations

The app does not include Firebase Analytics or crash reporting (Firebase Crashlytics), and it tells Firebase not to collect analytics. The usage statistics and error reports described in §2.2 are ours: the app sends them to our own servers, and no analytics company receives them.

10.3 Your Choices

• You can clear app data through your device settings
• You can turn usage statistics and error reports off in Settings → Privacy → «إحصاءات الاستخدام»
• You can allow or stop notifications in your phone's settings; the app's notification settings show what the phone allows

11. AI-Specific Disclosures

11.1 How AI Works in So7ba

So7ba uses AI to provide personalized support. Here is how:

Local Processing (On Our Servers):

• Text embeddings are generated using Ollama (running locally on our infrastructure)
• User behavior analysis and state computation
• Companion matching algorithms

External AI Processing:

• Journey drafts, personalized recommendations, insights and the companion's own messages are generated using the DeepSeek API (Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd.)

What we send. Each AI feature sends DeepSeek only what that feature needs:

Safety review, stated plainly. Text you publish to everyone is checked automatically for abuse, spam and signs of distress, so that a public stream is not the one part of So7ba nobody is watching. Besides the companion's own messages in the table above — which stop when you switch the AI Companion off — this is the only thing that reaches DeepSeek without you pressing a button. It reaches it only for public posts, and it runs whether or not your AI Companion is on. Private posts, companions-only posts, comments, direct messages and every message inside a journey or meetup room are not sent — not to DeepSeek, not to any classifier. The result is a status kept on the post (safe / needs a human look / blocked); a blocked post stops being shown to other people and you are told.

What is never sent. Your name (also when your first name appears in a message's title), email, phone number, date of birth, exact location, photos, private messages with other people, the identities of your companions, what matters to you («ما يهمّك»), your usage statistics and error reports, and your user id. Requests carry no account identifier. What can recur from one request to the next is your own words — a journey's title, a sentence you wrote — so a title that names you, names you.

The place of a meetup (المكان) — not an AI feature, and never part of the table above.

Say it plainly: when you type a sentence to create a journey, that sentence leaves our servers. If you write "I have a chemistry exam on 15 December and I want to study with my classmates", that is what DeepSeek receives. Write only what you are comfortable sending.

A new journey is created with your companion. It starts with one sentence and one button, "تابع مع صاحبك الذكي"; pressing it sends the sentence to DeepSeek, and the line under the button says so before you press. There is no way in the app to start a new journey from your own words without the companion (changed 30 September 2026). Joining a journey someone shared, a meetup («لقاء»), a step given a page of its own and — since 15 October 2026 — a journey started from one of our catalog's ideas (below) are made without it. Two things can stand in the way of the companion, and they are handled differently:

• You have switched the AI Companion off. No plan opens. The sheet says that a journey is created with the companion, and its one button becomes "شغّل صاحبك الذكي وتابع". Nothing is sent to DeepSeek until you press it. Pressing it switches the AI Companion on — the same switch as in Settings, with everything that switch governs (§11.4): your sentence is sent, and the companion's messages and features return as you had left them. Your other AI switches are not touched. You can switch it off again in Settings → AI Companion whenever you like.
• The companion cannot answer — DeepSeek or the network is down. The plan screen opens empty for you to write yourself, with "حاول مجددًا". Your sentence was sent when you pressed, and may have reached DeepSeek even though no answer came back.

When the sheet opens, the app asks our servers whether your companion is on, so that if it is off you are told before you write. If that question gets no answer, your sentence reaches our servers when you press, is refused there, and goes no further.

The intention (النية), and who sees it. The first row of the plan screen is the journey's intention. It starts as the sentence you wrote — or, when you start from a plan your companion proposed on a card, the intention written on that card; a plan you write yourself starts with none, because there the sentence is already the journey's name. You can change it or take it off before you start, and the row names who will see it, following the audience you choose on the same screen. A new journey's audience starts at «الجميع» — everyone in So7ba (§4.1) — so unless you change the audience, or change or remove the intention, your sentence is shown as the intention to everyone in So7ba who can see the journey. A worship journey starts with your companions only. What the row holds when you press "ابدأ الرحلة" is saved on our servers as the journey's intention and shown with the journey, in its details, to the people its audience allows; take it off and no intention is saved. Afterwards you can change or clear it from the journey's edit sheet.

Three things to know. A person who joins your journey gets a copy of their own, intention included, and a later change of yours does not reach a copy already made. Widening the journey's audience later shows the same intention to more people. And a version of the app from before this change has no such row: there the sentence is saved as the intention, as it always was.

The intention is included in your data download, and it is never sent to DeepSeek — what goes to the companion is the sentence, when you press. Nothing is created, and nobody sees anything, until you press "ابدأ الرحلة"; the audience is on that same screen, above the button.

Starting from an idea. A first-journey idea on the Today screen, or one from the catalog, opens the plan screen already filled in from our own catalog: nothing is sent to DeepSeek for it, and it works with the AI Companion off. The audience and the intention work as above.

Steps and their reminders. The steps of a plan, whether they are done once or repeat, the days they repeat on, and the reminder you give a step are saved on our servers with the journey. Neither they nor the intention are sent to DeepSeek when you edit them: the companion proposes a plan from your sentence when you press — and again only if you press "حاول مجددًا" — and what you change afterwards is yours.

Where it goes. DeepSeek processes requests on infrastructure in China. Requests are not retained by us beyond what is needed to produce the reply, and we do not send anything to DeepSeek for any purpose other than the features this section describes.

Sensitive categories. Journeys about worship, health, weight or mental wellbeing are treated the same as any other, and we mean that literally — there is no special handling and no carve-out. What is sent about such a journey is what is sent about any other: the sentence you start it with; its title, when a milestone message celebrates it; and — only once you have turned on Companion inside your journeys — its numbers. If you track "from 95 to 80 kg", the companion is told the target, what you have reached and the unit, in the same way it is told about "read 40 books". That is what lets it offer you a gentler target instead of a number it cannot see.

If that is not what you want, you have two ways out. Switch the AI Companion off (Settings → AI Companion): nothing about any journey leaves for DeepSeek — the safety review of what you publish publicly continues (§11.4) — and no new journey can be started from your own sentence until you switch it on again, because such a journey is created with the companion (one from our catalog's ideas still can). Or, for one journey, track it by steps rather than by a number, and no figure exists to send. The words of your check-ins and your notes, and your rest days, are never sent, whatever the category; the companion inside your journeys is told how many times you kept a rhythm this week, not what you wrote.

11.2 What AI Does NOT Do

• AI does not read your private messages
• AI does not make decisions that have legal or significant effects on you
• AI does not determine who can see your content or who is blocked
• AI does not share your personal data with other users
• AI outputs are recommendations only — you always have the final say

11.2b If You Tell the Companion You Are in Danger

If what you write suggests you may be about to harm yourself, So7ba does not answer it with the AI. The message is recognised by a fixed check before anything is sent to any AI provider, and you get a short, fixed reply with emergency and crisis numbers for your country.

In that case:

• Nothing is sent to DeepSeek or any other AI provider — the check runs before the request.
• Nothing is stored. That message is not written to the conversation history and is never summarised into the memory the companion keeps.
• You get no plan, no goals and no activities. So7ba's job in that moment is to point you at a person.

We would rather show that message to somebody who was quoting a song than miss somebody who was not, so the check errs toward triggering.

11.2c How Long the Companion Remembers, and How to Make It Forget

• Conversations with the companion are kept for 180 days, then deleted automatically.
• Extracted memory — short facts the AI writes about you from those conversations — is kept until you clear it.
• "Clear AI memory" in Settings → AI Companion erases both: every conversation turn and every extracted fact. If it cannot reach the AI service it tells you so rather than saying it worked.
• Turning AI off erases them too. "Disable AI entirely" means the companion stops and forgets.
• Deleting your account erases everything the AI service holds about you — its copy of your journeys and other people's AI suggestions of you included — in addition to your main account data.
• «ماذا يعرف صاحبي الذكي عنّي؟» lists the short facts our main servers keep for the companion about you: your language, how active you are, the direction of your mood and the area you focus on most. Deleting one deletes it from our database at once, and «امسح كل ما يعرفه عنّي» deletes all of them at once — the words are not kept aside (backup copies go within 90 days, §6.3). Turning AI off or deleting your account erases them too. While the AI Companion is on, it may notice the same thing again later and write it down as a new fact; turn AI off if you want that to stop.

11.3 AI Data Usage

• Your data is used to generate your recommendations — it is not used to train general-purpose AI models
• We do not sell or license your data for AI training by third parties
• Anonymized, aggregated patterns may be used to improve our recommendation algorithms

11.4 Controlling AI Features

AI features are of three kinds.

You press. Creating a journey, asking your companion a question and the activity suggestions send something only when you use them. Creating a new journey from your own sentence is always done this way, with your companion (§11.1): with the AI Companion switched off, nothing is sent and no plan opens — the sheet offers to switch the companion on and continues only if you press; when the companion is on but cannot answer, the plan opens for you to write yourself. Starting a journey from one of our catalog's ideas sends nothing, and works with the AI Companion off. Adding steps, checking in, reminders and posting an update involve no AI at all.

The companion writes to you. While the AI Companion is on — and it is on from the start, until you switch it off — the companion writes to you on its own schedule: a daily encouragement, milestone messages, nudges, an evening reflection question, a weekly review (with a notice when it is ready, and by email only if you turn that on — §3.4) and a weekly digest, which you find in the app without a notice. Nobody presses anything; §11.1 lists what these messages are written from. Switching the AI Companion off stops all of them from the next run.

Safety review of public posts. A post you publish publicly has its text checked for safety automatically (§11.1). It applies to public posts and nothing else, it runs whether or not your AI switches are on — turning AI off does not turn off safety review of public content, in the same way it does not turn off our ability to act on a report — and it never touches private posts, companions-only posts, comments, messages or room conversation.

The companion inside your journeys is off until you switch it on. It is not a button you press — it looks at your journeys in the background and may leave one suggestion on one of them. It has a switch of its own, Companion inside your journeys in Settings → AI Companion, which starts off for everyone — including people who had already turned other AI switches on. The older Companion Suggestions switch on that screen is a different thing (it suggests people with similar goals) and does not turn the daily companion on. The settings screen always shows you the state we actually hold, and cannot save while it has failed to read it. It looks at nothing until you turn the journey switch on; when it does, one notification carries the suggestion, during your daytime, and at most one a day.

The master switch is the master switch. Turning AI Companion off stops every AI feature — the companion inside your journeys, the daily encouragement, nudges, the evening question, the weekly review and digest, milestone messages, the notice suggesting people with goals like yours («صُحبة مقترحة»), the "ask" box, activity suggestions and creating a new journey from your own sentence — not only the ones that have a button. The journeys you already have keep working with it off: steps, check-ins, reminders, updates and the room need no AI. The switch is turned off only in Settings, and the settings screen says what that takes with it before you save; it can be turned back on there, or from the new-journey sheet when you start a journey (§11.1). The weekly-digest switch stops the weekly digest and the notice that your weekly review is ready (the review itself still appears in the app); the weekly review stops with the master switch, and so does its email.

The switches are live in the app:

• Disable AI entirely in Settings → AI Companion — stops everything in this section except the safety review of public posts, per-use features included; with it off a new journey cannot be started from your own sentence (one from our catalog's ideas can)
• Companion inside your journeys — a switch of its own, off until you turn it on
• Disable weekly digests separately
• Adjust AI frequency (Low, Normal)

Turning the companion off stops it from the next run onward. Suggestions already sitting on your journeys stay until you answer them or they expire after seven days; you can dismiss them, and dismissing is recorded rather than sent anywhere.

12. Regional Privacy Notices

12.1 Saudi Arabia (المملكة العربية السعودية)

Under the Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL):

• We process your personal data based on your explicit consent provided during registration and through your ongoing use of the Service
• You have the right to access, correct, and delete your personal data
• Cross-border data transfers are conducted with appropriate safeguards and risk assessments
• You may file a complaint with the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA)

12.2 United Arab Emirates (الإمارات العربية المتحدة)

Under the Federal Data Protection Law:

• We process your data based on consent and legitimate interest
• You have the right to access, correct, delete, and restrict processing of your data
• Cross-border transfers comply with adequacy requirements or approved safeguards
• You may file a complaint with the UAE Data Office

12.3 Egypt (مصر)

Under the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA):

• Written consent is obtained for processing sensitive personal data
• Cross-border transfers comply with PDPC requirements
• You have the right to access, correct, delete, and restrict your data
• You may file a complaint with the Personal Data Protection Center (PDPC)

12.4 European Union / EEA (الاتحاد الأوروبي)

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):

Legal Bases for Processing:

Your Additional Rights:

• Data portability in machine-readable format
• Object to processing based on legitimate interest
• Lodge a complaint with your local Data Protection Authority

GDPR Inquiries: support@so7ba.com

13. Updates to This Policy

13.1 Changes

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or other factors.

13.2 Notification

When we make significant changes:

• We will notify you through an in-app notification
• We will send an email to your registered email address for material changes
• We will update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this policy
• We will make the previous version available upon request

How we keep this promise: after a material change, every account made on or before the new "Last Updated" date sees a card in the app, once, after signing in («حدّثنا سياسة الخصوصية», with «اقرأ السياسة» and «حسناً»). Closing it on one device closes it on all of them. The same accounts get one email about that change. It is a service notice, not marketing: it has no unsubscribe link, and stopping the weekly review email does not stop it. An account with no mailbox (for example an Apple or Google sign-in that shared no email address) gets no email.

13.3 Continued Use

Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy. If you disagree with the changes, you should stop using the Service and delete your account.

14. Contact Us

For any questions, concerns, or requests related to this Privacy Policy or your personal data:

• Email: support@so7ba.com
• Website: so7ba.com

We aim to respond to all privacy-related inquiries within 30 days.

15. Summary of Key Points

For your convenience, here is a summary of the key points in this Privacy Policy:

Your privacy matters to us. So7ba is built to support your journey, not exploit your data.

So7ba (صُحبة) - Because your growth story is yours to tell.