Privacy policy

What stays on your phone

Your deck lives in the app's storage on your device: every word, its definition and example sentences, your own definitions and notes, translations you opened, your review history and schedule, your practice days, your settings (such as your level, exam goal, review mode, reminder time, appearance and language), and the name you give in your profile.

None of this is uploaded to us. A feature sends a piece of it only when it needs it, as described in the next section. If your phone backs up app data to iCloud or Google, this data can be part of that backup, under your Apple or Google account settings.

To remove it, use Settings > Data > Delete all words, which removes every word and its review history, or delete the app.

What the app sends to work

Some features need a server. When you use one, the app sends only the text involved to our server, which passes it to a provider and returns the answer:

When you recall a word from its definition, the check happens on your phone and nothing is sent.

These providers receive requests from our server, not from your phone, so they do not see your IP address or anything that identifies your device. Microsoft handles requests under its Azure OpenAI terms: they are not used to train AI models, and Microsoft may keep them for up to 30 days solely to detect and prevent abuse. ElevenLabs receives only the text to read.

Our server does not store what you send. Like most web services, our hosting provider keeps short-lived technical logs (such as IP address, time and the address requested) to run the service and protect it from abuse. Read-aloud requests carry their text in the web address, so that text can appear in these logs, and the audio made from it is cached so the same text plays instantly next time. Cached audio is not linked to you or your device.

Speech recognition

When you speak to Vocablish, your phone's built-in speech recognition turns your speech into text: Apple's on iPhone, Google's on Android. Depending on your device and settings, Apple or Google may process the audio on their servers to do this, under their own privacy policies.

Vocablish never receives, records or stores audio. It only gets the resulting text, which it uses as described above. Every step that listens can be answered by typing instead.

Anonymous usage data

Unless you turn it off, the app sends anonymous usage data so we can see which parts work and which do not.

What it includes: events such as a screen opened, a word added, a review answered and whether it was right, how long a step took, a setting changed, and when speech recognition, a network request or the app itself failed (the kind of error and the screen, never its message). Each event carries the app version, operating system and version, device type, language and time zone settings, and a random identifier created on your phone.

What it never includes: your words, definitions, example sentences, notes, answers, anything you say or type, or your profile name. As a safeguard, the app also drops any text value longer than a short label before sending.

Who processes it: PostHog, on its EU cloud, hosted in the European Union. PostHog sees your IP address when the app connects, as any internet service does; looking up a location from it is switched off.

Your choice: turn off Settings > Data > Anonymous usage data and the app stops sending it straight away.

Feedback and crash reports

When you send feedback from the app, we receive what you write, the kind of feedback, an email address if you choose to give one, and a diagnostics summary: app version and build, operating system and device model, the names of the last screens you opened, recent technical messages from the app, counts such as how many words you have saved, a few settings (level, exam goal, review mode, daily practice), the last crash report if there is one, and your anonymous usage identifier, so the report can be matched with usage data.

Diagnostics are not meant to contain your words or answers, though a technical message can occasionally name the word you were working on when an error happened. Reports are stored privately with our hosting provider, and we may receive a private notification with a short summary. If our inbox cannot be reached, the app offers to share the report through your phone's share sheet instead, and you choose where it goes.

If the app crashes, a summary (the kind of error, the screen and technical details, with quoted text removed) is kept on your phone. It is attached to the next feedback report you send and then cleared. If usage data is on, a crash event without the message is sent with it.

Reminders, sharing and updates

Reminders are scheduled on your phone by the app. They do not go through a server, and the app does not register your device for push notifications.

Sharing into Vocablish: text you share to the app from another app, or a Vocablish link you open, stays on your phone until you look the word up.

Exporting: Export words makes a text copy of your deck and hands it to your phone's share sheet. Where it goes is up to you.

App updates: the app downloads improvements to its code from Expo, which receives the technical details needed to deliver them, such as your IP address, the app version and your platform. Apple and Google deliver the app itself, and may share statistics with us, such as installs or crash reports, under their own policies and your device settings.

This website and email

vocablish.app uses no cookies, no analytics and no tracking. Cloudflare serves it and processes technical data, such as your IP address, to deliver the pages and protect the site from attacks.

If you email us, we use your message and email address to reply. Mail to our addresses is forwarded by Cloudflare to a Google mailbox.

Who we work with

We use these service providers, each only for the purpose listed:

• Vercel hosts our server and stores feedback reports.
• Microsoft (Azure OpenAI) writes definitions, suggestions and translations and checks answers.
• ElevenLabs generates the spoken voice.
• PostHog processes anonymous usage data, on its EU cloud.
• Open-Meteo provides weather for the home scene and receives nothing about you.
• Expo delivers app updates.
• Cloudflare serves this website and forwards our email.
• Google hosts our mailbox.

Apple and Google also provide speech recognition on your phone and distribute the app through their stores, under their own terms and privacy policies.

International transfers

Some of these providers are based in the United States or process data there. Where personal data leaves the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, the transfer relies on safeguards such as the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework or the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

Legal bases

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, we rely on these legal bases under the GDPR:

• Providing the features you use (looking up, checking, translating, reading aloud, feedback): performing our agreement with you, Article 6(1)(b).
• Anonymous usage data, crash reports and security logs: our legitimate interest in keeping the app working and improving it, Article 6(1)(f). You can object at any time by turning usage data off.
• Answering your emails: our legitimate interest in replying to you, Article 6(1)(f).

How long we keep things

• Your deck and settings stay on your phone until you delete them or the app.
• Feature requests are not stored by us. Hosting logs are kept briefly, cached speech until it expires from the cache, and Microsoft may keep requests for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring.
• Usage data is kept for as long as it helps us improve the app, and no longer than two years.
• Feedback and emails are kept while we need them to follow up or improve the app, and deleted on request.

Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live, you have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to receive a copy of it. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.

Because there is no account, we usually cannot tell which data is yours. Usage data and feedback are linked only to the random identifier on your phone. The simplest way to make a request is Settings > Send feedback, which includes that identifier, or you can email privacy@vocablish.app.

• To stop usage data, turn off Settings > Data > Anonymous usage data.
• To keep a copy of your deck, use Settings > Data > Export words.
• To delete your deck, use Settings > Data > Delete all words, or delete the app.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for targeted advertising.

Children

Vocablish is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, for example in a feedback report, contact privacy@vocablish.app and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

If we change how Vocablish handles your information, we will update this page and the date at the top. For significant changes, we will also let you know in the app or on this website.

Contact

Laszlo Kiss, the developer of Vocablish, is responsible for your information. Write to privacy@vocablish.app with any question or request about your privacy.