Privacy Policy

Who We Are

Team Beelang provides the Service and is the controller of the personal information described here.

Privacy questions and requests go to accounts@beelang.app.

Who This Policy Covers

It covers people who install or use the Beelang application, people who create an account, visitors to this website, and people who write to us.

Information We Process

Account information

When you create an account we process the e-mail address and the password you choose, a display name, and the six-digit codes we send to confirm the address or to reset the password, together with the identifiers and the sign-in state an account needs. Sign-in with Google or with Apple exists in our code but is switched off today: nothing is exchanged with them.

You can use Beelang with no account at all.

Learning progress

Your progress lives on your own device first, and Beelang works signed out. When you are signed in, it is also stored on our server so that it can follow you to another device: your experience points, your streak, your hearts, which lessons you have finished, and the spaced-repetition cards that decide what comes back and when. Synchronisation is deliberately simple — the last write wins — so what you see is whichever version was written most recently.

Devices and sessions

A signed-in account keeps a list of the devices it is open on, so that you can see them and sign any of them out remotely.

Leagues

Beelang has a weekly league. The display name on your account is shown there, with your score for the week, to the other learners in the same league. Nothing else from your account is shown.

Purchases

Beelang is paid through Stripe, PayPal or, for Russia, YooKassa. On the web the card is entered on the provider’s own page, never on ours: no card number ever reaches Beelang. For each purchase we keep which provider was used, that provider’s own reference, the amount, the currency, the country, the status, and the message the provider returned, so that a payment can be audited and a dispute answered. In the Android app installed from Google Play, Beelang is bought through Google Play — except in Russia, where payment goes through YooKassa: Google takes the payment under its own terms, and we receive from Google the purchase token, the product, its state, its dates, the order reference and the identifier of your Beelang account that the app handed to it, to switch Beelang Plus on for your account. Purchases through Apple’s App Store are planned and are not live today.

E-mail

The e-mails carrying sign-in and password-reset codes are relayed through Brevo, which processes the address and the message in order to deliver it.

Microphone and speech

Pronunciation exercises listen to you while the exercise is running. Two engines are possible. One runs entirely on your device once its model has been downloaded, and the audio does not leave the device. The other is the recogniser built into your platform: choosing it means the audio may be sent to Apple or to Google and processed under their terms. Speech exercises can be skipped one at a time and switched off altogether, and the microphone permission can be withdrawn in your device settings.

Technical information

Our server keeps the ordinary request logs any server keeps — the IP address, the time, the page or endpoint requested, the browser’s user-agent string and the outcome — in order to deliver the Service, keep it secure and investigate a fault.

There is no advertising, on this site or in the application. The web version of the application contains no analytics and no tracker of any kind; the Android app is described below.

This website measures its audience with Google Analytics, a service of Google, and only if you agree. Until you choose “Accept” in the banner, nothing is loaded from Google and none of its cookies is set. If you accept, Google Analytics sets its own cookies (“_ga” and “_ga_…”, which last up to two years unless you remove them sooner) and receives the pages you view, the page you came from, an approximate location derived from your IP address, and technical details of your browser and device. We use it to count visits and to see which pages are read, never for advertising. You can change your mind at any time with the “Cookies” link at the foot of every page; refusing there also deletes those cookies.

A link to this site may carry a code — “?code=…” — handed out by a partner who recommends Beelang. What such a link leaves behind depends on your answer in the cookie banner. If you accepted, the code is kept in your browser for thirty days, together with the label the partner put on the link and an identifier of your arrival: in your browser’s own storage, and in one cookie of our own (“bl_ref”), set by our server and unreadable by scripts. It is kept so that the reduction is still there when you come back, and so that the partner can be credited if you subscribe. Our server then records the arrival with the code, the label, the page you landed on, the host name of the site you came from, and a figure computed from your IP address, your browser’s user-agent and a secret that is discarded at midnight, which lets one visitor be counted once that day and cannot be turned back into an address; the IP address itself is not stored with it. When you create an account or sign in, the code is recorded on your account. If you did not accept — you refused, or have not answered — none of that happens: no cookie is set, nothing is written to your browser’s storage, and no identifier is made. The code is used only while it is in the address of the page you are on, and our server counts the arrival as a bare number — the code, the label, the page and the referring host name — with nothing that tells you from the next visitor.

Whatever you answered, a code that you enter yourself, or that a link carried to the pricing page, is applied to your purchase, recorded on it and on your account, and credits the partner whose code it is: that is the purchase itself, not something remembered about you. Refusing later through the “Cookies” link removes the kept code from your browser and has our server delete its cookie; what is already recorded on your account stays, as part of your account.

Apart from those two — Google Analytics’ cookies and the partner cookie, each only if you accepted — this site sets no cookies. It uses your browser’s own storage for four small things: remembering whether you asked for the dark or the light theme, remembering your answer in the cookie banner, keeping a partner’s code if you accepted, and holding a sign-in for the moment it takes to hand it over to the application.

The Android app: crashes, statistics, reminders

The Android app uses four Firebase services, a platform of Google. The web version of Beelang uses none of them.

• Firebase Crashlytics. When the app crashes or hits an error, it sends a report: the error’s trace, the app version, the device model and Android version, a random identifier for this installation, and the time. We use these reports only to fix errors; they contain neither your name, nor your address, nor anything you typed.
• Google Analytics for Firebase, unless you turn it off. The app does not ask: usage statistics are collected from the first launch, the app being opened included, and stop as soon as you turn off “Share usage statistics” in Settings › Privacy, with no reason needed. That choice is kept on the device, and a refusal given to the question earlier versions of the app asked still counts as a refusal. The app counts lessons started and finished (the lesson, the course, the points earned and the score), the Beelang Plus offer being shown, the outcome of a purchase through Google Play, the offer to rate the app and the rating given, and the tabs opened; Google Analytics adds on its own an app-instance identifier, the device model and system, the language, an approximate location derived from the IP address and session length. These events contain neither your name, nor your e-mail address, nor anything you typed. The device’s advertising identifier is not collected, advertising signals are refused, and nothing is used for advertising.
• Firebase Cloud Messaging, if you allow notifications. To send you a daily reminder — at most one a day, and only if you have not practised yet that day — our server keeps with your account the device’s notification token, the device’s identifier in Beelang, the app’s language and the time zone. The token is deleted when you sign out, when you turn reminders off in Settings or when Android renews it; you can also turn notifications off in Android’s settings.
• Firebase Remote Config, which lets us adjust a few of the app’s settings without a new version (for instance, when to offer to rate the app). It exchanges with Google only what any request carries, and an installation identifier.

The partner programme

If you apply to become a partner — someone who recommends Beelang and earns a commission — we process what you write on the application form: your name, your e-mail address, the links to your social media and channels, your own short description of who you are and what you publish, the platform you publish on, the size of your audience as you state it and your country, together with the language you applied in and the version of the programme’s rules you accepted. We attach a short verification phrase to your application and keep it with it; we give it to you only if your application is accepted — in the acceptance e-mail and on your partner page — for you to place in your channel’s description so that we can confirm the channel is yours. We use all of this to decide on your application and to write to you about it; the people who review applications receive it by e-mail when you apply. If we need to know more before deciding, we write to you, and keep our question with your application; your answer reaches us by e-mail. We do not ask for an identity document.

If your application is accepted and you take part, we also keep what running the partnership takes: your code and your short link, which we choose for you, the terms you are on, when you accepted the rules, the commissions your code earned — a date, a link label, an amount, never the buyer’s name, address or account — and the payouts made to you. To be paid you send us an invoice, which carries your legal name, your address and your tax or business registration number; we keep it with our accounts. Your partner page shows you this information, and shows it to nobody else: it is opened by the account whose confirmed e-mail address is the one your partnership was set up with.

An application that is declined, or that we have not answered, is deleted within twelve months. What belongs to a partnership is kept while it lasts; payout records and invoices are then kept for as long as accounting law requires.

Support

If you write to us, we process your address, your message, anything you attach, and what it takes to look into it and reply.

How We Use Information

We use personal information to:

• run the application and this site, and their features;
• create accounts, confirm an e-mail address, sign you in, and reset a password;
• keep your learning in step across your devices;
• run the weekly league;
• take payment for Beelang, confirm access to it, and answer a dispute;
• send the service messages an account needs, such as a sign-in or password-reset code;
• answer support, privacy and account requests;
• run pronunciation exercises when you use them;
• understand, through the Android app’s usage statistics, how the course is used, in order to improve it;
• keep accounts and the Service secure, and prevent fraud and abuse;
• comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms.

We do not use personal information for advertising, for profiling, or for sale.

Legal Bases

Where the General Data Protection Regulation or a similar law applies, we rely on the following legal bases, as the case may be:

• Contract — reviewing a partner application you sent us and running the partnership that follows; and what it takes to provide the Service you asked for and to run the account you created: signing in, syncing progress, the device list, the league, and Beelang.
• Consent — the microphone, which your operating system asks you for and which you can withdraw in your device settings. Withdrawing it stops the pronunciation exercises from listening; the rest of Beelang carries on. And, on this website, audience measurement and remembering a partner’s link, which both start only once you accept and stop when you refuse through the “Cookies” link. In the Android app, reminders, which you allow in Android and turn off in Settings.
• Legitimate interests — keeping the Service secure and available, investigating faults, preventing abuse, receiving the Android app’s crash reports to fix its errors, understanding through the Android app’s usage statistics how the course is used in order to improve it, defending legal claims, and crediting the partner whose code a purchase was made with, after weighing those interests against your rights. You can object to usage statistics at any time, with no reason needed, by turning off “Share usage statistics” in Settings › Privacy; they are never used for advertising.
• Legal obligation — what the law requires of us, including accounting duties for payments and consumer-protection obligations.

Children

Beelang is a general-audience product and is not directed at young children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child below the age at which consent is required in their country without the consent of a holder of parental responsibility.

If you believe a child has given us personal information without that consent, write to accounts@beelang.app: we will review the account and delete the information where that is appropriate. The age rating shown on an app store describes the content of an application and is set under that store’s own rating system.

When We Share Information

We share only what a purpose requires, with:

• Payment providers. Stripe, PayPal and YooKassa take the payment for Beelang and process what a payment needs, under their own terms. Card details go to them and not to us.
• Brevo, which relays the e-mails carrying sign-in and password-reset codes, and those of the partner programme to applicants and partners.
• Apple and Google. If you choose your platform’s own speech recogniser, the audio of a pronunciation exercise may be sent to it and processed under that company’s terms. Google takes the purchases made through Google Play and processes what they need; purchases through Apple’s App Store are not live today. If you accept audience measurement on this website, Google Analytics receives what is described under “Technical information”. And the Android app sends Firebase, of Google, what is described under “The Android app”.
• The partner whose code you used. If a purchase was made with a code — one you entered, or one a link carried — its owner is shown that a sale took place — the plan, the amount, the currency, the country and the date — and never your name, your address or your account.
• Other learners. The display name on your account and your score for the week are shown to the other learners in your weekly league.
• Professional advisers and authorities, where that is reasonably necessary for legal advice, a legal claim, a lawful request from an authority, or to protect someone from harm.
• A business transfer. Information may be transferred as part of a reorganisation or a transfer of the Service, under appropriate confidentiality and data-protection safeguards.

We do not sell or rent personal information, and we share none of it with advertisers or data brokers.

International Transfers

Beelang runs on the Owners’ own server in France. Some of the providers above may process information elsewhere: YooKassa operates in Russia, and Apple, Google, Stripe, PayPal and Brevo operate internationally. Where such a transfer falls under European law, we rely on an adequacy decision, on approved contractual safeguards or on another lawful transfer mechanism, and we apply protections appropriate to the information and to the risk.

How Long We Keep Information

We keep personal information only for as long as it is reasonably needed for the purposes described here. An account and its learning progress are kept while the account exists. Purchase records are kept for as long as accounting and consumer-protection law requires. Server logs are kept for a short period, for security and for fault investigation. Crash reports are kept for 90 days by Firebase Crashlytics, usage statistics for 2 months by Google Analytics, and a notification token until it is deleted as described above. The audio of a pronunciation exercise is processed in order to score that exercise; where the platform’s own recogniser is used, what becomes of the audio afterwards is governed by Apple’s or Google’s terms.

When information is no longer needed, we delete it or make it anonymous. Limited records may be kept where the law, a dispute or fraud prevention requires it.

Security

We use reasonable technical and organisational safeguards to protect personal information: traffic to the Service travels over an encrypted connection, access to the server is limited to the people who need it, and creating an account or resetting a password requires a code sent to your address. No online service can guarantee absolute security.

Please choose a strong password, do not reuse it elsewhere, sign out devices you no longer use, and write to us at accounts@beelang.app if you suspect unauthorised access.

Your Privacy Rights and Choices

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or restrict your personal information, to receive a portable copy of it, to object to certain processing, and to withdraw consent without that affecting processing already carried out lawfully.

Some of it you can do yourself: sign a device out from the device list, change your display name, turn pronunciation exercises off, withdraw the microphone permission in your device settings, turn usage statistics off and turn reminders off in the Android app’s Settings, or use Beelang signed out, which keeps your progress on your device alone.

For anything else, write to accounts@beelang.app. We may ask for what we need in order to check that the request comes from you. To have an account and its data deleted, use “Delete my account” in the application’s Settings, or the page beelang.app/en/account/delete, which works without the application. We may keep information where an exception under applicable law applies, and we will say so where we are required to.

You may also complain to a data protection authority: the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon), or the authority of the country where you live or work, or where you believe an infringement took place. We would rather you came to us first, so that we can try to put it right.

Changes

We may update this policy as the Service, the law or our practices change. We will publish the new version here, revise the effective date, and give additional notice through the Service where a change is material and the law requires it.

Contact

Team Beelang
E-mail: accounts@beelang.app

Please also read our Terms of Use.