WordStick ("the app", "we") is a hands-free Japanese drill app. This policy explains, in plain language, what information the app handles and where it goes.
Words you've studied, drill history, streaks, and settings are stored locally on your phone. Once accounts launch, this progress can also sync to your account so you don't lose it when you change phones. It is never used for anything except showing you your own progress.
When you speak, speech-to-text is performed by your device's built-in speech service (for example, Google's speech recognition on Android, or Apple's on iOS). Your audio goes from your device to that service under their privacy terms — WordStick never stores or keeps your audio, anywhere. If a future subscriber feature transcribes your speech through our own service instead, the audio is converted to text and immediately discarded — never stored. WordStick only uses the resulting text transcript, on your device, to advance the drill. The spoken audio the app plays to you is produced by your phone's own text-to-speech engine.
The core drill app works without any AI service. If you enable an optional AI feature (found under Advanced settings), the text involved (never audio) is sent over an encrypted connection to an AI provider (Anthropic) to generate a reply. We send only what that feature needs to work — never your name, email, or account details alongside it. Per Anthropic's API terms, API inputs are not used to train their models. If you never turn these on, nothing is ever sent to an AI provider.
When accounts launch, signing in with Google or Apple gives us your email address and a display name. We use these only to: identify your subscription, sync your progress, and contact you about your account. We never sell them, share them with advertisers, or use them for marketing you didn't ask for.
Subscriptions are processed by Stripe (and by the relevant app store if you subscribe through one later). We never see or store your card number. We receive only a confirmation that your subscription is active.
Learning data on your device is yours: uninstalling the app (or clearing site data) removes it. Once accounts launch, you can delete your account and its synced data from the app's Settings, or by emailing us — we will delete synced progress and account details within 30 days.
WordStick is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.
Depending on where you live (including under the Australian Privacy Principles, GDPR, and CCPA), you have the right to access, correct, export, or delete the personal information we hold about you. Email us and we'll do it — no forms, no runaround.
Questions or requests: juliuspireh@gmail.com
If this policy changes materially, we'll show a notice in the app before the change takes effect.