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Privacy Policy

Last updated: 3 April 2026

About Us

Parlance is a language learning platform operated by Benjamin Ekeloef, trading as Parlance, based in the United Kingdom. In this Privacy Policy, "we", "us" and "our" refer to Parlance.

We are the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. If you have a data protection enquiry, you can contact us by email at support@parlance.la.

The Information We Process

We process the following information about you:

Information you give us. This is information you provide when creating an account, using the Service, or contacting us. It may include your name, email address, username, learning language, native language, and password.

Information generated through your use of the Service. As you use Parlance, we generate and store learning data including AI conversations, AI-generated stories, vocabulary lists, spaced repetition review cards and review history, and an AI-generated learner summary (covering topics discussed, language ability, and personal facts you share in conversation). Note: the learner summary is generated automatically based on your conversations to personalise your learning experience. It does not produce any legal effects or similarly significant decisions about you.

Information we collect automatically. We use encrypted session cookies to keep you logged in and preference cookies to remember your settings (font size, story difficulty, autoplay preferences). We do not use analytics cookies, advertising cookies, or tracking pixels.

Information we receive from third parties. If you sign in with Google, we receive your Google user ID, name, email address, and profile picture from Google.

Why We Process Your Information and on What Grounds

The reasons for processing your personal information depend on your relationship with us:

For registered users, we process your information to perform the contract between us by providing you with our Service. This includes account authentication, AI content generation, vocabulary tracking, and spaced repetition review. We process your voice input data (where you use it) on the basis of your consent, which you provide by choosing to use the voice features.

For website visitors, we process only essential cookies required for the site to function. No consent-based tracking is used.

We also process information where we have a legitimate interest in doing so, including to maintain the security of the Service, to respond to your enquiries, and to improve the quality of AI-generated content.

We send transactional emails (account verification, password resets) as necessary to perform our contract with you. We do not send marketing emails.

How Long We Keep Information For

We retain your data for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, all associated data is permanently removed, including conversations, stories, vocabulary, review history, and learner summaries.

Translation data (word translations and grammar information) is cached separately and is not tied to individual user accounts.

Who Your Information Is Shared With

Your personal information is not shared with anyone except where necessary to provide the Service, to comply with the law, or to protect our rights.

We may share your information with the following:

AI service providers. To generate learning content, we send data to AI providers via their APIs:

Provider Data Shared Purpose
OpenAI (US) Chat messages, conversation context, vocabulary list, learner summary AI conversation and speech-to-text
Anthropic (US) Story titles, conversation prompts Story and conversation generation
Google Cloud TTS (US) Text snippets, dialogue text, speaker names, language code Single-speaker and multi-speaker text-to-speech audio
Pollinations / Myceli.AI (Estonia) AI-generated scene descriptions (no personal data) Flashcard illustration generation

These providers process data via API and do not use API data to train their models by default. OpenAI and Anthropic explicitly exclude API data from training. Google Cloud does not use customer data for model training under its Data Processing Addendum. See the links under "AI Training Disclosure" below for each provider's policy.

Other service providers:

Provider Data Shared Purpose
Google OAuth (US) Email, name, profile Account authentication
Resend (US) Email address Transactional email delivery
Serper (US) Search queries (story topics only) Web search for story enrichment

Your personal information may be transferred to recipients in the United States as set out above. We rely on appropriate safeguards, including standard contractual clauses where applicable, for these international transfers.

Professional advisers. We may share personal information with legal, financial, or other professional advisers where necessary.

Government bodies and the courts. If we have a legal obligation to do so, we will share your information with government bodies, regulators, and/or the courts.

Third parties in a business transfer. If our business is sold, merged, or transferred, the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this Privacy Policy.

We do not sell your personal data to any third party.

AI Training Disclosure

Your conversations and learning data are sent to AI providers via their APIs to generate responses in real time. None of these providers use API data to train their models by default:

Your Data Protection Rights

Under data protection law, you have the following rights:

  1. If we are processing your information on the basis of your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. The lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal is not affected.
  2. The right to access a copy of the information we hold about you (a "subject access request"). Requests should be sent to support@parlance.la. You do not need to pay a fee unless your request is clearly unfounded or excessive.
  3. The right to rectification — to have inaccurate information corrected.
  4. The right to erasure — to have your information deleted. You can do this by deleting your account, which permanently removes all associated data.
  5. The right to restrict processing of your information in certain circumstances.
  6. The right to data portability — to receive your information in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format.
  7. The right to object to processing of your information in certain situations.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@parlance.la. We will respond within 30 days.

Cookies

We use only essential and preference cookies:

Essential cookies (encrypted, HTTP-only, required for the Service to function):

Cookie Purpose Duration
parlance-session Keeps you logged in Session
parlance-csrf CSRF protection Session
parlance-toast Flash messages after actions 60 seconds
parlance-oauth OAuth sign-in flow state 10 minutes
parlance-verification Email verification flow 10 minutes

Preference cookies (remember your settings):

Cookie Purpose Duration
theme Dark/light mode 1 year
storyDifficulty Story difficulty level 1 year
storyStyle Story style preference 1 year
*FontSize Font size preferences (e.g. readFontSize, chatFontSize) 1 year
chatWordVisibility Word display in chat 1 year
pronounceWordVisibility Word display in pronunciation 1 year
ttsAutoPlay Text-to-speech autoplay 1 year

We do not use third-party cookies, advertising cookies, or tracking cookies.

Sensitive Information

The Service is designed for language learning practice. During conversations with the AI, please avoid sharing sensitive personal information such as medical conditions, financial details, legal matters, or other special category data under UK GDPR. While we take reasonable steps to protect all data, conversation content is processed by third-party AI providers, and we cannot guarantee how such information is handled beyond our control.

Data Security

We store your information on secure servers. Access to personal data is restricted to the systems and providers necessary to operate the Service. We protect your data through encrypted session cookies (HTTP-only, Secure, SameSite), bcrypt password hashing, CSRF protection, rate limiting on authentication endpoints, server-side-only API key storage, and HTTPS in production.

The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we take all reasonable steps to protect your information, we cannot guarantee the security of information transmitted to our servers. Any such transmission is at your own risk.

Third-Party Sites

Our Service may contain links to third-party websites. These sites have their own privacy policies and we do not accept responsibility or liability for them. Please check their privacy policies before submitting personal information.

Children's Privacy

The Service is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal data, we will take steps to delete that data promptly.

Users between the ages of 13 and 18 should have parental or guardian consent before using the Service.

Complaint Procedure

If you believe that we have breached data protection law, please contact us at support@parlance.la to lodge a complaint. If your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Future changes will be posted on our website. If the changes are significant, we will notify you directly. Your continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.