Last updated: October 15, 2026
Lumen is a study app built by one person. This page says what it collects, why, and what it never does. It is written to be read, not to be skimmed past.
Your account. Your email address and your name if you give one. This is how you sign in.
What you put into the app. Your classes, assignments, exams, grades, habits, notes, flashcards, focus sessions, essays you paste into Essay Review, and lectures you upload to Lecture AI. You typed it in, so it is yours.
How you use the app. Which features you open and when, so it is possible to tell what is working and what is broken.
Payment. Card details are handled entirely by Stripe. They never reach Lumen's servers and Lumen cannot see them.
Your camera and photos. Lumen asks to use your camera or your photos only when you tap something that needs a picture: scanning a syllabus or a document, Snap to Answer, a profile photo, or a photo for someone on your People list. The picture is uploaded so Lumen can read it for you or show it back to you. Lumen never opens your camera on its own.
Your microphone. Lumen asks to use your microphone only when you press record on a lecture, or press the microphone on a Recall question. The audio is uploaded and turned into text, notes and quiz questions. It is never recorded in the background. Check your school's rules before you record a class.
Emails. Lumen's emails are being cut back in October 2026 to receipts, sign-in codes and a heads up before a free month or a trial ends. Until that update you may still get some reminder emails. After it, reminders come as phone notifications instead.
Phone notifications. If you turn on phone notifications, Lumen sends your reminders to your phone. You turn them on yourself in Settings, under Notifications, and your phone asks you first. Each one is a short title and one line, and the title can carry your first name. It never shows a grade, a habit or a personal to-do on your lock screen, and squad notifications name neither your squadmates nor your classes. Class names are being removed from the rest of Lumen's lock-screen notifications in the October update. Lumen aims for three a day at most and never sends more than five. You can set quiet hours in Settings (10pm to 7am your time unless you change them); they start applying with the October update. Reminders you set a time for yourself still come during quiet hours. To send them, Lumen keeps one record for each phone you turn this on for: the address your phone's maker gives it (Apple, Google, Mozilla or Microsoft), the keys that lock each message so only your phone can read it, the kind of phone and browser, your time zone, and when a notification last reached it. Lumen also counts which notification wordings get opened, with no message text and no task in the count. Turn the switch off and that phone's record is deleted. Phone notifications are not in the iPhone app yet.
Which screens you open. Each day, Lumen notes which screens you opened and how many times, for example "Stack" or "Classes". It keeps only the screen's name. It does not keep what was on the screen, anything you typed or searched, or any id. Jonah uses the counts on a private page to see what students use and what they never find. They are not sold or shared.
Squads. What you share in a squad is seen by the people in that squad and no one else: your first name, your profile photo, your weekly numbers, your comments and your shared notes. If you turn on the public leaderboard, other students can also see your first name, your last initial and this week's study minutes. You can report any post, comment or note and block anyone from the ... menu on it. When you report something, Lumen emails Jonah what you reported, who wrote it and who reported it, and keeps that record. When you block someone, the block stays on your account until you remove it in Settings, under Blocked people.
Faith features. Faith features are off unless you turn them on, in Settings under Faith or by starting the 40-Day Christ Walk. If you do, Lumen keeps what you choose to write there (your daily anchor, the verse you typed, what you were grateful for, and why you started, if you said) so it can show it back to you. Only you can see it. Turn faith features off any time in Settings. Until the October update, an occasional phone notification can still carry a short verse or kind word.
Your private calendar link. If you turn on the calendar link in Integrations, Lumen makes a private web address that your calendar app reads to show your due dates and exams. The link is a secret: anyone who has it can see those dates, so do not share it. You can reset it, which stops the old link at once, or turn it off.
Your material is used to run the features you asked for, and nothing else. A lecture you upload gets turned into notes for you. An essay you paste gets read to give you feedback on it. A syllabus you upload gets read to fill in your dates.
Some of that work is done by outside services:
Those services see only what is needed to do that one job. When you use a Lumen AI feature, the picture, recording or text you gave it is sent to those services to do that one job. The first time, in the phone app, Lumen asks you to say yes.
Lumen does not sell your data. Not to anyone, at any price.
Lumen does not show ads and does not share your information with advertisers.
Lumen does not read your material for any purpose other than giving you back the feature you asked for.
Your schoolwork is not used to train AI models.
If you connect a Google account, Lumen asks only for what the feature needs, and only after you say yes on Google's own screen. That access is used solely to show and update the events the feature is for. You can disconnect it at any time from your Google account settings, and Lumen keeps no copy of your Google data after you do.
Lumen's use of information from Google APIs follows the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements.
Your data stays while your account is open. Delete something inside the app and it is gone from your account.
You can delete your whole account yourself, inside the app. Go to Settings, tap Delete account, and type DELETE.
That permanently deletes your login and the records saved in your account: your classes, tasks, exams, grades, habits, journal, flashcards, lecture notes and squad posts. If you share a squad with other people, you are taken out of it and the squad stays for them. If you pay for Lumen, your plan is cancelled first, so you are not charged again.
Some things are not deleted:
If you signed in with Apple, you can also stop using your Apple ID with the app in your Apple ID settings, under Sign in with Apple.
If the button does not work for you, or you want to ask about anything left over, email hey@lumenbyjonah.com.
Lumen asks everyone's birth month and year when they sign up. If a student is under 13, Lumen asks for a parent's or guardian's email first and sends that parent a notice. Nothing else is saved about the child until the parent says yes. After the yes, Lumen sends the parent a second email with a link to cancel.
For an account under 13, Lumen keeps the child's email, a password, their first name if they give it, and the schoolwork they type in, only to run the app for them. AI features, Squads and leaderboards are turned off, so nothing the child writes is sent to AI services or shown to other students. Lumen has no ads and never sells anyone's information.
A parent can ask to see the child's information, have it deleted, or stop the account at any time by emailing hey@lumenbyjonah.com. A request a parent never answers expires after 7 days.
Lumen is built for students, and many of them are under 18. If you are under 18, please check with a parent or guardian before paying for anything.
If this policy changes in a way that matters, the app will say so rather than quietly updating this page.
hey@lumenbyjonah.com