Privacy Policy

What you can do without an account

Every lesson can be read without signing up. If you start learning as a guest, your browser may keep a random device identifier (a cookie) so your progress and saved words stay on this device. We do not ask for your name or email at that point.

What we collect when you create an account

• Account details: your email address, a password (stored only as a salted hash, never in plain text) or your Google account identifier if you sign in with Google, and the name you choose to show.
• Preferences: the language you learn, your interface language, your daily goal, the avatar you pick, and your time zone.
• Learning data: lessons you open and finish, words you look up or save, review history, quiz and study results, XP, streaks, badges, and minutes spent studying and speaking.
• Voice-call data: the number of minutes you spent in calls (for your daily limit and XP). We do not record calls.
• Subscription data: if you buy a paid plan on the website, your plan, its dates and a customer reference from our payment provider. We never see or store your card number.
• Contact messages: if you write to us through the contact form, your name, email address, the topic and your message, the account it was sent from (if you were signed in), and a one-way hash of your IP address that we use only to limit spam.

What other learners can see

When you create an account, your profile is public and you appear on the language rankings. Anyone with the link to your profile can see your username (a random one such as hey_k3x9q2mz, which you can change), first name, avatar, totals (XP, streak, words, minutes) and badges, but never your email. On the rankings, other learners see your first name and the initial of your last name. You can switch off "Public profile" and "Show me on the rankings" at any time in your profile settings. During a voice call your partner hears your voice and sees the name you use on Heylangs; text chat and captions in a call go straight to your partner and are not saved on our servers.

How we use your information

• To run the service: sign you in, keep your progress, schedule reviews, count free daily limits and provide paid features.
• To send email: confirmation and password codes, and receipts from our payment provider.
• To keep the site safe and working: preventing abuse, limiting how fast requests can be made, finding and fixing errors.
• To improve lessons: understanding which content is used. We do not sell your data and we do not use it for advertising.

Services that receive some of your data

To provide features we use other companies. Each receives only what it needs and handles it under its own privacy policy:

• Google Translate and Google's text-to-speech: when you tap a word the dictionary does not have, ask for a pronunciation, or listen to a text read aloud, your browser may send that word or sentence directly to Google. Your IP address is visible to Google, not to us.
• AI providers: when you ask the AI to explain a sentence, chat with Heylangs AI or make a quiz, the text involved (and, if you use a microphone, a short audio clip) is sent to an AI provider to produce the answer. We do not send your name or email with it, and we do not sell these inputs.
• Google sign-in: if you choose it, Google tells us your email address and name.
• Polar: our payment provider for web payments, which processes payments, taxes and invoices (when paid plans are offered on the website).
• YouTube: video lessons embed the YouTube player, which may set its own cookies when you play a video.
• Cloudflare: our network provider, which handles traffic to heylangs.com and sees technical request data (such as IP address).
• Our email provider: used to deliver the emails above.
• Your browser's speech recognition: voice features may use it. In Chrome and Edge your voice can be sent to the browser maker to be turned into text.

Voice calls

Calls are peer to peer: audio travels directly between you and your partner. We only pass the connection details that let your browsers find each other (and, if a direct route is not possible, relay the connection). We never record, listen to or store any of it; the only thing we keep from a call is how many minutes you spoke, to give you XP and to apply the daily limit of a free account.

Cookies and local storage

We use a few cookies and browser storage that the site needs to work: sign-in cookies, the guest device identifier, and settings stored in your browser (your language pair, whether you have completed the welcome picker, interface preferences such as the collapsed sidebar, and switches such as pronunciation or reading replies aloud). A service worker keeps lessons you have opened so they can be read offline. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. To understand how the site is used, we use Google Analytics 4, which sets cookies such as _ga and _ga_* and receives your IP address and usage data. You can block or delete these cookies in your browser settings.

The Heylangs mobile app

The Heylangs app for iOS and Android requires no account, no email, and no social sign-in. The app keeps a random, anonymous device identifier on your phone so features like saved vocabulary and learning progress work across sessions. We don't collect names, emails, or passwords in the app. The app goes further than the website (full voice conversations, pronunciation scoring); that processing is described in the in-app privacy notice. An account on the website is separate from the app's anonymous device identifier.

Third-party content

Some pages embed third-party audio, video, or images (for example, YouTube embeds or stock photography). Those providers may set their own cookies or collect data per their own privacy policies when you interact with that embedded content directly.

How long we keep data

We keep account data while your account exists. You can ask us to delete your account at any time by writing to [email protected]: your profile, saved words and progress are then removed from our systems, apart from what we must keep by law (for example payment records, which our payment provider holds). Guest data is kept while the device identifier is in use. Analytics aggregates are kept for up to 24 months. Support emails and contact-form messages are kept as long as needed to help you.

Your rights

You can ask us to show you the data we hold about you, correct it, export it or delete it, and you can object to or limit some uses. Many of these you can do yourself in your profile and settings. For anything else, write to us at the address below and we will reply within a reasonable time. If you think we handled your data wrongly, you may also complain to your local data-protection authority.

Where data is processed

Heylangs and some of our providers operate in several countries, so your information may be processed outside the one where you live. We use providers that protect personal data to a comparable standard.

Security

We protect data with encrypted connections, hashed passwords and limited access. No service is perfectly secure, so please use a strong, unique password.

Children's privacy

Heylangs is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe a child has given us their data, tell us and we will remove it.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the site changes. Material changes will update the "Last updated" date above, and we will tell you in the service if a change is important.

Contact

Questions or requests about your data? Write to [email protected].