Privacy

Who runs it

Languages is run by one person as a personal project, not a company. It has no advertisers, sells nothing, and shares nothing for marketing.

A contact address will be published here soon.

What it keeps

• Your account: the name you choose, your email address, and your password, stored only as an Argon2id hash that cannot be turned back into the password. Your address gets one welcome email when you first choose your languages, and the password-reset emails you ask for; nothing else.
• Your study: the languages, levels and daily pace you choose; each card you are shown as new and each answer you rate, with the time; and your timezone, so your study day starts at 4 am where you are. This is what schedules your reviews. If you say when you plan to study, or how many days a week, that too, until you change it. If you choose the language the app speaks to you in, that choice.
• Staying signed in: a random code in a cookie keeps you signed in on a device for up to 90 days after you last use it. The server keeps only a hash of it.
• Password resets: when you ask for one, a link that works once, for 30 minutes. The server keeps only a hash of it.
• Server logs: the web server records each request (IP address, time, the page asked for, and the browser) to keep the service running and secure. The log has a fixed size, and the oldest entries are overwritten as it fills.
• Anki history: if you asked for your Anki review history to be brought over, those reviews are kept with your account.
• Reading: if you use it, each text written for you, the words it was built on, the answers you chose, and whether you opened or reported it.

What other learners see

Other signed-in learners see your name on the leaderboard, with how many cards you studied and on which of the last 7 days. Nothing else about you is shown to anyone. You can hide yourself from the leaderboard at any time, in Account or on the leaderboard itself. Your progress, what you know in each language and how your weeks went, is worked out from what is listed above and shown to you alone.

Reading

Reading is optional, and nothing is sent until you ask for a text. The first time you ask in a language, the page says what will be sent. From then on, each time you ask for a text in that language the server sends words you have studied in it, with their meanings and example sentences from the course, to Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic in the United States, which writes a short text and three questions from them. Nothing you type is sent, and nothing that says who you are: no name, no email address, no account number.

If you listen to a text, the server sends that text to Google, which reads it aloud from servers in the European Union. Nothing that says who you are is sent, and the recording is not kept.

Nobody reads a text before you do, and an AI model can make mistakes. If you report a text, the person who runs Languages reads that text. You can stop reading in a language in Account, which stops the sending. The texts already written stay with your account until you delete it.

Reminders

Reminders are optional, and off until you turn them on for a device. Your browser then gives Languages an address at its maker's notification service (Google, Apple, Mozilla or Microsoft) and a key. Both are kept with your account, with what each day came to (a reminder sent, or none needed) for 90 days. A reminder travels through that service, which may be outside the European Union, encrypted so that only your browser can read it: the service learns that Languages sent your device something and when, not what it says.

Turning reminders off in Account, or signing out on that device, removes the address and the key straight away. If you do not use Languages on that device for 90 days, you are signed out there: it gets no more reminders, and the address and the key are removed within a day.

What it does not do

No analytics, no advertising, no tracking, and no scripts, fonts or images from other websites. The only cookie is the one that keeps you signed in. Your browser also stores a note that someone is signed in on it, so the app can open without showing this site's front page first, a rating that is still waiting to be saved, the language you chose for the app and, where you turned reminders on, which account did.

Where it is kept

• Hetzner (Germany) runs the server, in Helsinki, Finland.
• Scaleway (France) sends the welcome and password-reset emails and holds encrypted backups, in Paris.

Everything stays in the European Union, with two exceptions. If you use reading, the words it sends go to Anthropic in the United States, with nothing that says who you are. If you turn reminders on, each one passes through your browser maker's notification service, which may be outside the European Union and cannot read it. A text you listen to is read aloud by Google within the European Union.

How long

As long as you have an account. Deleting your account, in Account, removes everything kept for it straight away. Encrypted backups keep a copy for up to 28 days, until they are replaced.

Why

To give you what you signed up for: your account, your study schedule and your progress, the leaderboard, reading if you use it, reminders if you turn them on and, when you ask, a password reset. The server logs keep the service running and safe.

Your choices and rights

In Account you can change your name, timezone and language, hide yourself from the leaderboard, and delete your account yourself. To get a copy of your data, correct something, or ask anything else about it, write to the contact address above. You can also complain to the data-protection authority where you live.

Changes

If what Languages keeps or why changes, this page will say so, with a new date at the top.