Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 20, 2026

Vocab Cards (“the app”) is provided by Irenee Ajeneza. This policy explains what data the app handles and who it is shared with. The app has no user accounts and no login, and it does not track you.

What stays on your device

Your flashcards — their text, transliterations, notes, tags, your recordings and any spoken audio the app adds — and your study history are stored on your device. Apart from the short-lived copy of Plus results described under “What our relay keeps”, they are not stored anywhere else.

Typing a card and recording your own voice for it never send anything off your device — except that with Plus, and your agreement to use AI services, the back of a typed card without your own recording is sent to Google to add a spoken voice (see below).

When you dictate a card with the microphone button, the app uses Apple's speech recognition. If your iPhone can recognise your language on the device, the recording stays on it. If it can't, iOS sends the recording to Apple's speech recognition service to turn it into text (Apple's privacy policy applies). We never receive it. Where Apple's speech recognition isn't available and you have Plus and have agreed to use AI services, the recording is sent through our relay to OpenAI instead, as described below.

Plus features: what is sent, to whom, and why

The optional paid features (“Plus”), and the free tries of them, build cards for you. They send data only when you use them, and only after you have agreed in the app. Data goes through our own relay server (so no vendor keys are in the app) to these services:

  • Your recording → OpenAI (speech to text). When you use Say a phrase (or, with Plus, dictate a card where Apple's speech recognition isn't available), the recording is sent to OpenAI to turn it into text. OpenAI does not keep transcription requests after answering and does not use API data for training.
  • Your text → Anthropic (card building). The transcript of your recording, or the text you paste, is sent to Anthropic (Claude) to choose what to learn and write the card (meaning, transliteration, notes), together with up to five of your own cards (the word and its transliteration) so new cards match your spelling. Anthropic deletes API inputs and outputs within 30 days and does not use them for training.
  • Card text → Google Cloud Text-to-Speech (spoken audio). The text of a card's back (the side in the language you are learning) is sent to Google Cloud Text-to-Speech to create spoken audio, which is then saved on your device. This happens for the cards Plus makes for you, when you ask for a voice, and — with Plus — automatically for a card you type or whose back you edit, unless it has your own recording on the back. Google does not log this text or audio.

You can withdraw your agreement at any time in the app (Settings → Plus). The app then sends nothing to these services until you agree again; a request already on its way can't be recalled. You must be 13 or older to use these features.

Earlier versions of the app (before 1.1.0)

Versions of the app before 1.1.0 use two other services, through the same relay, when you add a card by voice. While those versions are still in use, our relay still sends their requests on:

Version 1.1.0 and later never use these two services. Updating the app stops these requests.

Purchases

Subscriptions are bought and billed by Apple. To know whether your subscription is active on all your devices, the app uses RevenueCat, which receives your purchase history from Apple together with a random, anonymous identifier created by the app. It does not receive your name, email or Apple ID, and it is not used for advertising or tracking. We use RevenueCat's aggregate charts (for example, how many trials started) to understand whether Plus is working.

What our relay keeps

Our relay never stores your recordings. It keeps only the following, none of it linked to your name, email or Apple ID — only to random ids the app creates, or to a one-way hash of your IP address:

  • the finished result of each Plus request — the cards (including, for each, the sentence of your text it came from), and for a recording its transcript and the languages detected — for up to 24 hours, so a retry after a lost connection returns it instead of charging you twice; then it is deleted;
  • a random device token (stored as a one-way hash) and the random device id it belongs to, and how many free tries that device has used; these are kept with no expiry date, so free tries can't be claimed again;
  • usage counters: how many Plus features each subscription used, to enforce fair-use limits (deleted within about 40 days), and how many requests each device made in the last hour or two, to prevent abuse;
  • short-lived counters keyed by a one-way (salted) hash of your IP address — never the address itself — that limit free tries, new device tokens and, for app versions before 1.1.0, translation and transcription requests; they are deleted within 2 days;
  • your anonymous RevenueCat identifier's subscription status (for up to 10 minutes, and the last confirmed status for up to 3 days in case RevenueCat can't be reached), which identifier each device last used (up to 90 days) and how often it switched identifiers that day (2 days), and which devices used each subscription (up to 31 days), so one subscription can't be shared too widely.

Like any website, our hosting provider sees your IP address to deliver each request; our relay does not record it.

Analytics and tracking

The app does not use third-party analytics, advertising or tracking SDKs, and it does not track you across apps or websites.

Children's privacy

The app is not directed to children under 13 and does not knowingly collect personal information from them. Plus features are for people aged 13 or older.

Deleting your data

Deleting the app removes your cards, recordings and settings from your device. The one exception is the app's random device token, kept in the iOS Keychain, which iOS may keep after the app is deleted (so free tries are per device, not per install). It identifies nothing about you. On our relay, results are deleted within 24 hours, IP-based counters within 2 days, and the rest at the times listed above. The device token and its free-try counts have no expiry date. Because they are linked only to a random id and not to you, we can't look them up by your name or email; they contain no cards, text or recordings.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by the “Last updated” date above.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Email ireneeapps@gmail.com.