Privacy

Sign-up

What you give when you sign up

Three things, all from the same form: an email address, a password, and a name, taken from the “what should we call you” field.

The email address identifies the account and is where a password reset is sent. The name is used only to greet you in the interface, and does not have to be your real name. The password is handled by Firebase Authentication, a Google service, which stores it as a hash. It is never visible to this app or to anyone operating it, which is why a forgotten password can be reset but not retrieved.

Learning

What the app records as you learn

One record per word you have studied. It holds the stage the word has reached, how many times in a row you have answered it correctly, how many days until it is next due, and the dates on which it moved between stages. Your settings are stored alongside it: your review pace, your daily goal if you have set one, and how far through the themes you have progressed.

None of this is behavioural tracking, and none of it is analysed to build a profile of you. It is the data the review schedule runs on. A word cannot return after one day, then two, then four, unless the app has recorded when you last saw it and whether you answered correctly.

What is not recorded: the text you type into an answer box. Typed attempts are checked in your browser and then discarded. Only the outcome (right, wrong, or had to think) affects the record, and it is stored as an interval rather than as a history of individual answers.

On your device

What is saved in your browser

Four things, all saved on your own computer or phone rather than sent anywhere. None of them is a cookie. This app sets no cookies at all, and nothing stored here follows you to another site.

Clearing your browser's site data removes all four. The only effects are that the colour mode resets, your place in a carousel is forgotten, and you have to sign in again. Your progress is stored on the server against your account, and returns as soon as you sign back in.

Not done

What this app does not do

• No analytics. No visitor counting, no session recording, no heatmaps, no funnels.
• No cookies. Not one, for any purpose.
• No advertising, and no advertising networks.
• No payments. The app is free and no card details are ever asked for or handled.
• No mailing list. The only email that will ever arrive is a password reset you asked for yourself.
• No profiling, no automated decisions, and nothing sold or shared with anyone.

There is no consent banner on this app, because there is nothing to consent to. Consent banners exist to request permission for tracking and other non-essential storage, neither of which is used here.

Third parties

Other companies involved

Google, through Firebase. One company, doing four jobs: Authentication holds your email and password hash and sends the password-reset email; Firestore stores your profile and your word records; Storage serves the audio; Hosting serves the app itself. Google processes this on instruction and does not use it for its own purposes. Like any web server, Hosting keeps ordinary request logs (IP address, time, page and browser) for a limited period. Those are Google's logs, and they are not read or analysed here.

Nobody else. There is no analytics service, no error reporting service, no embeds and no outside scripts. The typefaces are served from this site's own files. Marcellus previously loaded from Google Fonts, which sent your IP address to Google on every page load, and it no longer does.

Storage

Where it is kept, and for how long

Your account and your progress are stored in Google's European data centres, in a multi-region that keeps the data inside the EU. It is not transferred out of the EU for storage.

It is kept until you remove it. There is no expiry date and no periodic deletion, so an account left unused for two years still holds its progress. If you would prefer it removed, deleting it takes a single action, described below.

Your rights

Your rights, and where to use them

The GDPR gives you the right to see, correct, export and delete the personal information an organisation holds about you, and to object to how it is used. Most of these are built into the app rather than being something you have to write in and ask for.

• See and correct it. Settings shows your name and email, and both can be changed there. Your progress is visible in the Bank, word by word.
• Delete the progress, keep the account. Settings has a reset that clears every word record and starts you over.
• Delete everything. Settings → delete account removes your word records, then your profile, then the account itself. It is immediate and cannot be undone, and it leaves nothing behind.
• Get a copy. Ask at zehntence@gmail.com and you will be sent your profile and your word records in a readable file.

You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority if you believe something here is wrong. You are not required to raise it here first, although doing so is usually quicker.

The rest

Children, changes, and getting in touch

Children. This is a German course for adults learning in their own time, not something aimed at children, and it is not marketed to them.

Changes. If the app begins doing something new, such as taking payments, sending a newsletter, counting visitors or adding an outside service, this page is rewritten before that change ships and the date at the top is updated. The parent site's policy continued to state that the site had no accounts for some time after this app introduced them, which is the error this page corrects.

Getting in touch. Questions about anything on this page, or a request about your data, go to zehntence@gmail.com.