The short version
- Everything you create in the app stays on your device.
- There is no account and no sign-up.
- The app shows Google AdMob ads; in Europe you are asked for consent first and can change your answer at any time.
- Google Firebase receives anonymous usage counts and crash reports, with no user id attached.
- A subscription is sold and managed by the App Store or Google Play; we never see your payment details.
- We do not sell your data, and we do not share it for advertising profiling.
- Uninstalling the app deletes everything it stored.
- Part 2 of this page is the terms of use for the app.
Part 1 — Privacy Policy
Who we are
Learn Cantonese teaches spoken and written Cantonese through lessons, a Hong Kong slang dictionary and pronunciation practice you do out loud. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android. Your progress lives on the device you are using.
Learn Cantonese is published by iDataGear Inc, a company incorporated in British Columbia, Canada. Where this policy says we or us, it means iDataGear Inc.
There is no account to create and no sign-up. We do not operate a server that receives your content, and we hold no database in which you have a record.
What the app keeps on your device
The app writes the following to private storage on your device — an area other apps cannot read. It stays there until you delete it or uninstall the app.
| What | Why | Where it is kept |
|---|---|---|
| Learning progress | Lessons finished, test results and which items you have seen. | Your device only |
| Favourites | Items you starred or bookmarked. | Your device only |
| History | What you looked up or practised recently, so you can return to it. | Your device only |
| Streak and statistics | Daily streak and study counts shown on your profile. | Your device only |
| Settings | Language, theme, audio and display preferences. | Your device only |
| Subscription status | A cached yes-or-no answer from the store, so the app works offline. | Your device only |
| Your advertising choice | The consent answer you gave, so you are not asked again every launch. | Your device only |
None of this is uploaded to us. We cannot read it, cannot recover it for you, and are not able to hand it to anyone else, because it never reaches us.
Speech recognition for pronunciation practice is performed by the operating system's own recogniser — Apple's on iOS, Google's on Android — under the platform's privacy terms. Depending on the device and the language, that recogniser may process the audio on the device or on the platform's servers. We receive neither the audio nor the transcript: the app is told only how closely what you said matched the expected phrase, and the audio is discarded as soon as that score is produced.
What leaves your device
This is the complete list. Everything not named here stays on your device.
| What is sent | Who receives it | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Ad requests | Google AdMob | To select and measure an advertisement. |
| Anonymous usage events | Google Firebase Analytics | Counts of which features are opened, with no user id attached. |
| Crash reports | Google Firebase Crashlytics | The error, call stack, device model and app version when the app fails. |
| Purchase validation | Apple App Store / Google Play | To check whether a subscription is active. No card details reach us. |
| A version check | Apple App Store / Google Play | To tell you a newer version exists. Sends the app's package name and version. |
| Nothing automatic | Websites you tap | Opening a link in the app hands it to your browser, which then behaves as your browser does. |
On launch the app asks the App Store or Google Play whether a newer version exists, so it can tell you. The request contains the app's package name and version and nothing about you.
The macOS build contains neither the advertising SDK nor Firebase. On macOS the app shows no ads and sends no analytics or crash reports.
What the app does not do
For as long as this policy is the current one:
- There is no account, no sign-up, no email address and no password.
- We run no server that receives your content, and hold no database with a record of you.
- We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.
- The app does not track you across other companies' apps or websites, and shows no App Tracking Transparency prompt.
- Nothing is synced to a cloud account of ours. There is no backup on our side to restore from.
- The app does not ask for or read your location.
- The app does not read your contacts, calendar, messages, call log or files outside its own storage.
Permissions, and why each one is asked for
Each permission below is requested for one stated purpose and used for nothing else. On both platforms you can refuse or withdraw any of them in system settings; the features that depend on them stop working, and the rest of the app carries on.
| Permission | Platform | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Internet access | Android | Required for the network requests listed above. |
| Microphone | Android | To record when you start a recording. |
| Foreground service | Android | To keep a task you started running with a visible ongoing notification. |
| Advertising ID | Android | Used by AdMob to select and measure ads. You can reset or delete it in Android settings. |
| Billing | Android | To sell and verify the subscription through Google Play. |
| Microphone | iOS | To record when you start a recording. |
| Speech recognition | iOS | To score your pronunciation using Apple's recogniser. |
| App Tracking Transparency | iOS | Not requested. The app does not track you across other companies' apps or websites. |
| Location | Android and iOS | Not requested. |
| Camera | Android and iOS | Not requested. |
Advertising, and your choices
This version of the app shows advertising supplied by Google AdMob. Google acts as an independent controller of the data it collects through those ads, under its own policy at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
To choose and measure an ad, Google may receive your device's advertising identifier, general device and app information, an approximate location derived from your IP address, and whether you saw or tapped the ad. We receive none of this about you individually — our reporting is aggregate revenue and impression counts.
Ads in this app appear as banners and as full-screen interstitials between activities.
In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland the app shows Google's consent form before requesting a personalised ad. Your choice is recorded on your device and is re-openable at any time from the app's settings, under the advertising or privacy-options entry, so you can change your mind.
You can reset or delete the advertising identifier at any time — on Android under Settings › Privacy › Ads, and on iOS by turning off Allow Apps to Request to Track, which also makes the identifier unavailable to every app.
The app does not present Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt and does not track you across apps or websites owned by other companies.
Analytics and crash reporting
The app uses Google Firebase for two things: Crashlytics, which reports crashes, and Analytics, which counts how features are used. Both are processed by Google on our behalf.
A crash report contains the state of the program when it failed — the error, the call stack, the device model, the operating-system version and the app version. It is generated automatically by the failure and tells us which line of our code to fix.
Analytics events are counts of anonymous actions, such as a screen being opened. We do not set a user id or any user property, so the events are not tied to a person, and we cannot look you up in them.
Subscriptions and purchases
This version of the app offers an auto-renewing subscription. The purchase is handled entirely by the App Store or Google Play.
We never see your card number, billing address or any other payment detail. The store tells the app only whether a valid entitlement exists; that answer is cached on your device so the app works offline.
Keeping and deleting your data
Everything the app keeps is on your device, so you control how long it lasts.
Delete an individual item inside the app to remove it. To remove everything at once, uninstall the app: the operating system deletes its private storage, and with it every item in the table above.
Crash reports and analytics events are held by Google under Firebase's own retention schedule — crash data up to 90 days, analytics up to 14 months. Since they carry no identifier of yours, they cannot be traced back to you or removed individually.
Your rights
Under the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the CCPA as amended by the CPRA, Canada's PIPEDA and comparable laws elsewhere, you have rights over personal information held about you — to know what is held, to obtain a copy, to correct it, to have it deleted, and to object to or restrict its use.
For this app those rights are already satisfied by the design rather than by a request to us: the data is on your device, you can read it in the app, change it, export it and delete it, and we hold no copy to produce, correct or erase.
We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising as the CPRA defines those terms. There is accordingly no sale to opt out of.
If you believe we hold something about you regardless, write to idatagear@gmail.com and we will answer. You may also complain to your local data-protection authority.
International transfers
We are based in Canada. The third-party services named in this policy are operated by companies based in the United States and may process data in any country where they run infrastructure, under the transfer safeguards set out in their own policies — for Google, the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.
Children
This app is made for a general audience. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from a child.
There is no account system, no messaging, no social feature and nothing another user can post or see — so there is no route by which a child using the app could disclose anything to us or to anyone else.
One further note for parents: the bundled dictionary is a record of how the language is actually spoken, and its entries include slang about sex, drugs, gambling and profanity, defined in a plain reference style. The app is rated accordingly.
If you believe a child has given us personal information, write to idatagear@gmail.com and we will delete it.
Security
App data is held in the operating system's private per-app storage, protected by the device's own sandbox and by full-device encryption when a screen lock is set. Setting a passcode, PIN or biometric lock is the single most effective thing you can do to protect it.
Every network request the app makes uses HTTPS. No method of storage or transmission is perfect, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Changes to this policy
We update this policy when the app changes. The date at the top of the page is the date of the current version, and the change is published here as soon as it takes effect.
If a change means the app begins collecting something it did not collect before, we will say so plainly rather than leaving you to compare two versions of the text.
Part 2 — Terms of Use
1. Accepting these terms
By installing or using the app you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the app and remove it from your device.
These terms are between you and iDataGear Inc. Where you obtained the app from the App Store or Google Play, that store's own terms also apply to the transaction, and in case of conflict on a matter the store governs — payment, refund, redownload — the store's terms prevail.
2. Your licence to use the app
We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the app on devices you own or control, for your own use, in the ordinary way the platform intends. We keep all other rights.
You may not copy, sell, rent, sub-license or redistribute the app, reverse engineer or decompile it except to the extent that law expressly permits despite this clause, remove or alter any notice inside it, or use it to build a competing product.
3. Your content is yours
Anything you create in the app is yours. We claim no ownership of it and no licence over it. Because it stays on your device, we could not use it even if we wished to.
You are responsible for backing it up. Uninstalling the app, resetting the device, or losing or replacing the device removes what the app stored, and we hold no copy from which it could be restored. Export anything you would mind losing.
4. Acceptable use
Use the app lawfully. In particular, do not use it to break the law or anyone's rights, to record anyone where recording them requires their consent and you do not have it, to interfere with its operation or security, or to attempt to obtain fees, features or content you have not paid for.
5. Purchases, renewal and cancellation
Where the app offers a subscription, it renews automatically at the end of each period at the price shown at purchase, and it is charged to the store account you bought it with, unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the period ends.
Cancel from the store, not from the app: on iOS in Settings › your name › Subscriptions, on Android in Google Play › Payments and subscriptions. Cancelling stops the next renewal; the current period runs out as paid. Any free trial ends on purchase and its unused part is forfeited.
Refunds are issued by the store under the store's own policy, not by us, because the store is the merchant of record for the transaction. Prices may change; a change applies to renewals after we give you notice, and you may cancel instead of accepting it.
6. Accuracy of the content
The content in the app is provided for learning and reference. Language is disputed, regional and always moving, and dictionaries, translations, transliterations, pronunciation scores, stroke orders and recognised text can all be wrong. Do not rely on any of it where being wrong would matter — in an examination, a legal document, a medical setting or a contract — without checking it independently.
7. Third-party services
The app uses third-party services named in the privacy policy above. Each is governed by its own terms and privacy policy, we do not control them, and we are not responsible for what they do. Links out of the app to other websites are provided for convenience and are not an endorsement.
8. No warranty
The app is provided as is and as available, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy or non-infringement. We do not warrant that it will be uninterrupted, error-free, compatible with every device, or that defects will be corrected.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so parts of this clause may not apply to you, and nothing here limits a consumer right that cannot lawfully be limited.
9. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, nor for lost profits, lost data, lost recordings, lost routes or lost progress, however caused and on any theory of liability, even if we were told such damage was possible.
Where liability cannot be excluded, our total liability for all claims arising out of the app is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us for it in the twelve months before the claim, or twenty Canadian dollars.
10. Changes and termination
We may change, suspend or discontinue the app, or any part of it, at any time. We may update these terms; when we do, the date at the top of this page changes, and continuing to use the app after that is acceptance of the updated terms.
This licence ends if you breach these terms, and it ends whenever you remove the app from your devices. The sections on your content, warranty, liability and governing law survive.
11. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the Province of British Columbia, and the federal laws of Canada that apply there, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. The courts of British Columbia have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute, and you and we submit to them — except that either of us may seek injunctive relief in any court with jurisdiction.
If a provision of these terms is held unenforceable, the rest stays in force. Nothing here removes a mandatory consumer protection of the country you live in.
Contact
Questions about this policy, requests about your data, or anything else:
iDataGear Inc
Email: idatagear@gmail.com
Web: www.idatagear.com