Privacy Policy
Cephas · last updated 3 October 2026
Cephas is a meeting-agenda tool for a congregation's coordinator, published by Prairie Fire, LLC. This policy describes every piece of information the app handles, and it is short because the app collects almost nothing.
The short version
Prairie Fire, LLC cannot see your data. Cephas has no servers. Everything you type stays on your own devices and, if you leave iCloud on, in your own private iCloud database — the same place your Notes and Reminders live. There is no analytics, no advertising, no tracking, and no third-party code in the app that could send your information anywhere.
What Cephas stores
Information you enter yourself:
- People. The names of the men in the congregation, and — where you choose to fill them in — an email address, a phone number, and whether a man serves as coordinator, service overseer, or secretary. Email and phone are optional and blank by default.
- Meetings and agendas. Agenda points, assignments, due dates, notes, announcements, letters, and the schedule of readings.
- Congregation details. The congregation's name as it appears on the letterhead, the document name, and an inbox email address.
- Attachments. PDFs you attach to an announcement are copied into the app's own storage so they cannot go missing later.
Cephas collects nothing beyond what you type. It does not read your contacts, your calendar, your location, your photos, or your address book.
Where it goes
On your device. The app keeps its data in a file in its own storage directory, together with any attachments.
In your private iCloud. If iCloud sync is enabled, the same data is written to the CloudKit private database of the iCloud account signed in on the device, in the container iCloud.works.prairiefire.cephas. A private CloudKit database is readable only by the account that owns it. Prairie Fire, LLC has no access to it and no ability to grant itself access. Apple handles that data as described in the Apple Privacy Policy.
Nowhere else. The app makes no other network connections. Its only network traffic is CloudKit over HTTPS to Apple.
Files you send yourself
When a coordinator hands a meeting to a notetaker, Cephas writes a file and you choose how it travels — AirDrop, email, Messages. Cephas does not send it anywhere itself. The file holds that one meeting and the names of the men in the congregation, without their email addresses or phone numbers. It is encrypted: by default so that it cannot be read by anything other than Cephas, and, if you set a passcode in Settings, so that it cannot be opened by anyone who does not have the passcode. The notes that come back travel the same way. The passcode itself is kept in the device's Keychain — on that device only, not in iCloud Keychain — and is shown as dots unless you choose to reveal it.
The web notetaker is a single page with no server. It keeps the meeting and what is typed in that browser's local storage only (a passcode, if there is one, encrypted under a key the browser will not export), its own security policy blocks it from making any network connection, and its Settings can remove everything it holds.
This website
cephas.mov is a handful of static pages and the web notetaker. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics, has no forms and no accounts, and asks for nothing. It is served by Cloudflare, which — like any web host — handles the IP address and details of each request in order to deliver the page and to guard against abuse, and shows us only aggregate traffic counts. Request logging is switched off on our side, and nothing that identifies a visitor reaches us. Cloudflare handles that data as described in the Cloudflare Privacy Policy.
Reminders
If you turn on the Reminders feature and grant permission, Cephas creates and updates reminders in a single list it manages, so that reading assignments show up alongside your other tasks. Those reminders live in Apple Reminders on your device and in your iCloud account. Cephas reads that list only to notice when you have ticked an item off. Permission is optional; declining it disables the feature and nothing else.
What we do not do
- No analytics, crash reporting, or usage measurement.
- No advertising, and no data used for advertising or marketing.
- No tracking across apps or websites, and no data shared with data brokers.
- No third-party SDKs of any kind.
- No account to create, and no sign-in to Prairie Fire, LLC.
Deleting your data
- On a device: delete the app. Its local store and attachments go with it.
- From iCloud: in Settings → your name → iCloud → Manage Account Storage, find Cephas and delete its data. Because the data is in your own private database, this removes it completely.
- In a browser: in the web notetaker, Settings → Remove Everything from This Browser.
Since we never receive your data, there is nothing for us to delete on your behalf and no request for us to fulfil.
Children
Cephas is a tool for congregation administration. It is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect information from them.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and the current version is always at cephas.mov/privacy.
Contact
Questions about this policy: hello@cephas.mov
Prairie Fire, LLC