Catholic prayer app threatened by EU data regulations

Citizens of the European Union may soon lose access to the Christian prayer app Hallow because of tight online data restrictions, the app’s CEO Alex Jones said this week. Jones claimed the EU was targeting religious apps through regulation that would make it impossible to operate, though he did not specify which restrictions were at play. As of Friday morning, the EU had not published a statement on the issue. China removed the popular app from its app store in July last year.

The union in 2022 approved the Digital Services Act which took effect in February last year and requires all platforms that serve the EU to publicly report user totals twice a year. The law also prohibits platforms from processing sensitive data, including information that reveals a user’s religious or philosophical beliefs, without explicit consent.

How popular is Hallow? The company last month reported that users around the world had downloaded the app more than 22 million times. Hallow launched in 2018 and offers people guided prayers, meditations, and Bible readings. According to the company, the app has been used to pray more than 700 million times and in February 2024, it became the number one app in the Apple App Store. The company was planning to expand its Polish, French, Italian, and German content before EU regulations threatened to shut it down, Jones said. Alliance Defending Freedom International replied to Jones’ social media post about the situation saying the organization may be able to help.

Dig deeper: Read my report about Bluesky running afoul of the same social media rules.