🛡️ Privacy Highlights at VocalBanana
- Microphone access is used strictly to evaluate pronunciation and provide interactive voice feedback.
- Raw voice recordings are never sold, rented, or repurposed for advertising or behavioral profiling.
- Account authentication and progress metrics are secured using Google Firebase infrastructure.
- You maintain full control over your data with permanent account deletion directly available inside the app.
1. Introduction
Welcome to VocalBanana ("we," "our," or "us"), provided by Maxwell Conseil. This Privacy Policy outlines how our mobile application and associated web services handle, collect, process, and protect your information when you use our language learning and pronunciation coach application.
By installing, registering with, or utilizing VocalBanana, you acknowledge the data handling practices described in this policy.
2. Information We Collect
To provide personalized phonetic scoring, accent diagnosis, and persistent user progress, we process the following data types:
A. Audio Data & Voice Recordings (Sensitive Device Permission)
When you record sentences, words, or participate in roleplays, the app requires access to your device microphone (RECORD_AUDIO). Audio chunks are captured in short audio formats (such as WAV or M4A) and transmitted via encrypted HTTPS to our speech-recognition endpoints for immediate phonetic alignment and scoring.
B. Account & Authentication Credentials
If you sign up or log in, we collect your email address, unique user ID (UID), and basic authentication tokens through Google Firebase Auth or Google Sign-In. We never store plain-text passwords.
C. Learning Analytics & Progress Metrics
We track your performance statistics, including Exponential Moving Average (EMA) clarity scores, targeted phoneme powers, error lists, daily streaks, custom bookmarked sentences, and selected target accents.
D. Device & Performance Identifiers
Standard diagnostic telemetry, OS version, device architecture, and crash reports may be logged automatically by platform libraries (such as Expo and Google Play Services) to resolve bugs and performance anomalies.
3. Purpose and Legal Basis for Processing
We process your data exclusively for the following operational purposes:
- Pronunciation Evaluation: Performing acoustic-phonetic alignment to score individual phonemes and calculate overall sentence accuracy.
- Dynamic Lesson Routing: Generating personalized practice queues targeting identified weak phonemes.
- Cross-Session Synchronization: Preserving streaks, custom bookmarks, and diagnostic history across app relaunches.
- Security & Authentication: Preventing unauthorized access and verifying registered users.
4. Third-Party Services & Data Sharing
We do not sell, trade, or monetize personal or audio data. Data is shared exclusively with necessary cloud infrastructure providers that comply with strict data protection obligations:
| Service Provider | Purpose | Data Shared |
|---|---|---|
| Google Firebase (Google Cloud) | Authentication (Auth) & Database (Cloud Firestore) | Email, User ID, progress scores, bookmarks |
| Google Cloud Run Processing APIs | Phonetic alignment & text-to-speech rendering | Ephemeral audio files and target sentence strings |
| Expo / EAS (650 Industries) | Application runtime & compilation infrastructure | Device model, OS version, crash logs |
5. Audio Retention & Storage Policy
Audio recorded during evaluation sessions is processed ephemerally on dedicated inference servers to return acoustic logits and alignment scores. Audio recordings submitted for recognition are not permanently archived or used to train third-party public machine learning foundation models without explicit user consent. Local temporary files created on your mobile device are cleared or overwritten during routine app operation.
6. User Rights & Account Deletion
In full compliance with Google Play Store Developer Policies, GDPR, and CCPA, you have the right to access, rectify, or permanently delete your account and associated data at any time.
How to Delete Your Data:
- Open the VocalBanana app on your device.
- Navigate to Settings.
- Scroll to the bottom and select Delete Account.
Confirming this prompt executes an immediate, irreversible deletion of your Firebase user record, Firestore documents, saved statistics, and bookmarks.
7. Data Security
We enforce strict technical and organizational safeguards. All communication between the VocalBanana mobile client and cloud backend services occurs over industry-standard Transport Layer Security (TLS/HTTPS). Database access is governed by granular Firestore security rules preventing unauthorized reads or writes between different user accounts.
8. Children's Privacy
VocalBanana is intended for general audiences aged 13 and older. We do not knowingly solicit or collect personal identifiable information from children under the age of 13. If we become aware that personal information has been collected from a child under 13 without verified parental consent, we will take immediate steps to delete that data.
9. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect operational, legal, or regulatory updates. Any changes will be posted directly to this public web page with an updated "Effective Date" at the top of the document.
10. Contact Us
If you have questions, feedback, or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal data, contact us directly:
App: VocalBanana
Email: privacy@vocalbanana.com