Privacy Policy — VocabPilot
Effective date: March 27, 2026
This Privacy Policy describes how VocabPilot (“we”, “us”, “our”) collects, uses, shares, and protects information when you use our mobile application. It also explains your choices and rights regarding your information.
Short Summary
- You can use the app in guest mode or with an account (Firebase Authentication). If you create or sign in to an account, we collect basic account details and usage data to provide the learning experience, and we temporarily process audio recordings for pronunciation analysis. We do not sell personal data.
1. What data we collect
- Account information: Email address, display name, and Firebase UID when you sign up or sign in (Google Sign‑In).
- Usage & analytics: App usage events, feature usage, practice progress, preferences, device/platform (OS, app version), and notification events.
- Pronunciation audio: Short audio recordings you create to receive pronunciation feedback. Recordings are uploaded to a signed storage URL for analysis and removed after analysis. Transcripts and analysis results (scores, feedback) may be stored if you save practice results.
- TTS / generated audio requests: Text you request to be synthesized (words or short phrases) is submitted to our TTS pipeline and may be forwarded to third‑party TTS/STT providers for processing.
- Crash & diagnostics: Anonymous crash reports and diagnostic data (stack traces, device model, OS version) collected to help us improve stability.
- Device permissions: The app requests microphone permission to record audio (
android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO) and may request other platform permissions for features (e.g., notifications).
2. Why we collect data and how we use it
- To provide the core service: generate definitions, practice sentences, analyze pronunciation, and persist your practice history.
- To personalize your experience: adapt difficulty, remember preferences, and surface saved words and collections.
- To operate and improve the app: aggregate analytics, debug crashes, and measure feature usage.
- To deliver notifications and reminders when you opt in.
3. How data is shared and third parties
To run the service we rely on a small set of third‑party providers. Where applicable, we only share the minimum necessary data.
- Convex: Backend database and storage (stores user content, practice results, and cached TTS audio). Audio uploads for analysis are uploaded to Convex Storage via signed URLs.
- Firebase: Authentication (user identities) and associated services.
- TTS / STT providers: We use third-party providers configured in our backend to synthesize and transcribe short audio/text for pronunciation features. These providers may change over time. We send only the relevant text and/or audio required to produce the result. Transcription results and derived feedback may be stored in Convex as practice results.
- OpenRouter / LLMs: Used only for generating feedback, examples, and brief explanatory text where enabled.
- YouTube: Video examples are provided as YouTube links and embedded using YouTube player Official components. Playing videos uses YouTube services and may be subject to their data collection.
- Sentry: Crash reporting and error telemetry (may include anonymous device identifiers and Firebase UID when available for debugging).
- Expo: Push notifications and other Expo platform services.
We do not sell personal information to third parties.
YouTube & Embedded Video Services
VocabPilot uses YouTube services to provide real‑world spoken English examples. When you view or play embedded YouTube videos in the app, you agree to YouTube Terms of Service and Google Privacy Policy.
- We do not transmit your VocabPilot account credentials or personal profile information to YouTube to display embedded videos.
- If you open a full video in your browser or the YouTube app while signed into Google, YouTube may collect and associate viewing activity with your Google account per their policies.
- Embedded YouTube players and related Google services may set cookies or use other tracking technologies controlled by Google; we do not control those practices — see Google’s documentation for details.
- Watching videos on YouTube may expose you to ads served by Google; VocabPilot does not use YouTube data to target ads on our behalf.
4. Audio handling details
- Recordings: When you submit a pronunciation recording for analysis, the app uploads the raw audio bytes to a short‑lived signed URL. The analysis is performed on the backend using configured STT/TTS providers. Temporary audio files are deleted after analysis finishes. Only processed results (transcript, scores, feedback) are stored when you save a practice result.
- TTS caching: Generated audio from TTS providers may be cached in Storage to avoid repeated calls and to reduce costs; cached audio is retained only as needed and removed according to our retention policy.
5. Data retention
- We retain account data, saved words, collections, and practice history for as long as your account exists or as required for legal obligations and dispute resolution.
- Uploaded pronunciation audio is deleted immediately after analysis. Transcripts, scores, and saved practice history are retained until you delete them or delete your account.
6. Security
- We use industry‑standard security measures (TLS/HTTPS, signed upload URLs, access controls on backend storage) to protect your data in transit and at rest. We strive to follow best practices.
7. Your choices and rights
- Delete account: You can permanently delete your account from the app (Settings → Delete Account). This removes your saved words, collections, practice history, and associated personal data. Some backups or cached copies may persist for a short period as required by internal retention policies.
- Opt out / preferences: You can disable notifications in your device settings or in the app (when available). To opt out of analytics or request additional data controls, contact us (see below).
- Access / export: To request access to, correction of, or export of your data, contact us at the address below.
8. Children
- The app is not intended for children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16. If you believe a child under 16 has created an account, please contact us to delete that account.
9. Changes to this Privacy Policy
- We may update this policy occasionally. We will post the updated policy in the app and update the effective date. Material changes will be highlighted in the app or communicated by email when feasible.
If you have questions, requests, or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at vocabpilot@gmail.com.