Privacy Policy
This policy explains how Hare Studio (“we”, “us”), an individual developer in the Republic of Korea, handles information in the app DailyTalk: Learn Korean — called “DailyTalk KR” on your home screen and “デイリートーク韓国語会話” in Japanese (the “app”) — and on this website.
The short version
- You can use every feature without telling us who you are. When you first open the app, it creates a guest account that is identified only by a random ID.
- Your full learning history is stored on your device. Our server keeps a small summary, your speed-quiz results and — only if you link a Google or Apple account — a daily backup so you can restore your progress on a new device.
- The app shows ads from Google AdMob. Google collects your device’s advertising ID and related data through the app and also uses it for its own purposes.
- Lesson packs are optional purchases. Apple or Google processes the payment, and we never see your payment details. Once you have bought any pack, the app no longer shows ads.
- We never record your voice. Speaking practice uses your device’s speech recognition; the app receives only the recognized text and checks it on your device.
- You can delete your account and server data at any time in the app: Settings → Account → Delete account. See Delete your account and data.
1. Who we are
Hare Studio, an individual developer based in the Republic of Korea, operates the app and is responsible for the personal information described in this policy. For any privacy question or request, email bullgomhare@gmail.com.
2. Information we collect
Using the app requires the guest account and the automatic collection described below. Linking a Google or Apple account is optional, and so is buying a lesson pack.
2.1 Your account
| Information | When | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A random account ID (your guest account) | Created automatically the first time you open the app | To keep your data separate, run speed quizzes and let you delete your account |
| If you link Google (Android and iOS): your email address, your Google account ID, and the name and profile photo address (URL) of your Google account | Only when you choose to link Google in Settings | To back up your learning history and restore it on a new device, and to confirm it’s you when you contact us. Your email address is shown in Settings; we don’t use your name or photo. |
| If you link Apple (iOS only): your email address — a private relay address if you choose “Hide My Email” — and your Apple user ID | Only when you choose to link Apple in Settings | Same as above |
2.2 Learning data stored on our server
Your complete learning history stays on your device. Our database (Cloud Firestore, in Seoul) stores only the following:
| Information | When | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Summary: your leaderboard nickname, level (1–3), current and longest streak, and the time of the last sync | For every user, after each lesson, before a speed quiz and when you change your nickname or reminder time | To show your nickname on leaderboards and keep a summary of your progress |
| Speed quizzes: lesson ID, the questions you got, the answers you chose, your score, number of correct answers, time taken, the number of attempts and the time of your latest attempt. Your app language is sent only to show the questions in your language and is not stored. | When you play a lesson’s speed quiz | To score your answers on the server, so scores can’t be faked, and to rank them |
| Backup: lessons completed (date and score), review schedule, word progress, saved expressions, streak details, Hangul lesson progress, your answer to “Can you read Hangul?”, and your romanization setting | Only for linked Google or Apple accounts, at most once a day after a lesson | To restore your learning history on a new device. A backup never overwrites what is already on your device. |
Your leaderboard nickname is generated by the app — a Korean adjective and an animal, such as 용감한 수달 (“brave otter”). You can’t type your own. If your best score is in a lesson’s top 20, other app users see that nickname and score. They never see your email address or account ID.
2.3 Information collected automatically
Google services built into the app collect the following technical information:
| Service | Information | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics for Firebase | App-instance ID; the device’s advertising ID (on iOS, only if you allow tracking); on iOS, the identifier for vendor (IDFV); approximate location (country, region, city) derived from your IP address; device model, OS and app version; app language; automatic events such as first open, sessions, app updates and in-app purchases (see 2.5); and study events — lesson completed (lesson ID, score, streak), review or word session finished (number of answers), onboarding finished (level), speed quiz or check finished (lesson ID, score or percentage) | To understand how the app is used — for example, whether learners come back the next day or week — and to improve the lessons |
| Firebase Crashlytics | Crash and error reports (stack trace, app state, device model, OS version), a Crashlytics installation ID, and session information | To find and fix crashes |
| Firebase Authentication, with Google reCAPTCHA | IP address and device and app signals when your account is created or linked | To prevent abuse of sign-in |
| Firebase App Check (Google Play Integrity on Android, Apple App Attest on iOS) | A token showing that a request comes from a genuine copy of the app on a genuine device | To protect our server from abuse and cheating |
| Firebase Installations and Cloud Messaging | Firebase installation ID, a messaging (push) token, and the app version | Required by the Firebase components in the app. The token may be attached automatically to requests to our server functions. We don’t send push notifications and don’t store these in our database. |
| Our server functions (Cloud Functions) | Your account ID, IP address, which function was called and when, and whether the App Check token was valid | To run speed quizzes and account deletion, and to keep the service secure |
| Pronunciation audio (Firebase Hosting) | IP address and the name of the audio file requested — no account ID and no cookies | To deliver pre-made Korean audio |
We never send your account ID, email address, name, nickname or anything you say to Analytics or Crashlytics.
2.4 When you contact us
If you email us, we receive your email address and your message. An email started from the app’s Settings already contains the app version, app language and device platform so that we can help you; you can see and change everything before you send it. We use your email only to reply and to handle your request.
2.5 Purchases
Lesson packs are sold through the Apple App Store and Google Play, and the store processes the payment under its own terms and privacy policy. We never receive your card number or other payment details, and the app doesn’t send your purchases to our database or server functions.
| Information | Where | Why |
|---|---|---|
| What the store tells the app when you buy or restore a pack: the pack’s product ID, the status of the purchase (completed, restored, pending, cancelled or failed) and a purchase token, which the app doesn’t keep or send anywhere | Your device only. The app keeps a record of which packs you own, which store you bought them from, and when. | To unlock the lessons you bought and to stop showing ads |
| In-app purchase events: product ID and name, price, currency and quantity | Google Analytics for Firebase, which can record them automatically when a purchase is completed through the store | To understand how packs are used and improve them |
Your purchases belong to the store account you paid with, not to your account in the app. They aren’t part of the backup, and deleting your account doesn’t remove them; to get them back on a new device, use “Restore purchases” with the same store account.
2.6 What we don’t collect
- Recordings of your voice, or the text recognized from your speech (see section 4).
- Your precise location — the app has no location permission.
- Your contacts, photos, files or messages.
- Your phone number — we request only your basic Google profile.
- Payment details, such as your card number — Apple or Google processes payments (see 2.5).
3. Advertising (Google AdMob)
The app is free and shows ads from Google AdMob: banners at the bottom of lessons and speed quizzes and on results screens (after a lesson, practice or a word session) and, at most once a day, a full-screen ad when you leave a lesson you have finished (none in your first three days with the app). Full-screen ads never interrupt learning. Reviews and word quizzes do not show ads during practice. Once you have bought any lesson pack, the app no longer requests or shows ads; the Google Mobile Ads SDK may still start when the app opens, so the tracking and consent choices below still apply.
The Google Mobile Ads SDK in the app sends the following directly to Google LLC:
- device identifiers — on Android, the advertising ID and app set ID; on iOS, the identifier for vendor (IDFV), which is limited to one developer’s apps, and the advertising identifier (IDFA) only if you allow tracking;
- your IP address and the approximate location derived from it;
- ad requests, impressions and clicks, and app launches;
- diagnostic and performance information, such as app start time, hang rate and crash information.
Google uses this information to show and measure ads — which may be personalized based on your activity in other apps and on websites — and to prevent fraud and invalid traffic. We don’t receive or handle this information about individual users: the SDK sends it directly from your device to Google, which obtains it itself and also uses it for its own purposes, such as improving its services. Learn more in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services and the Google Privacy Policy.
On iOS, the app asks for your permission to track before any ads are loaded. If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, Google’s consent message first asks for your choices, and you can change them later from the privacy options in the app’s Settings. We do not mark ad requests as directed to children. To limit ad tracking, see Your choices.
4. Speech recognition and audio
In speaking exercises, when you tap the microphone, the app asks for microphone permission (the first time only) and starts your device’s speech-recognition service — usually Google’s on Android and Apple’s on iOS. That service turns your voice into text and may process the audio on its provider’s servers under the provider’s own privacy policy, such as the Google Privacy Policy or Apple’s Privacy Policy.
The app itself never records, saves or uploads audio. It receives only the recognized text, compares it with the Korean sentence on your device and shows it to you; it doesn’t store or send that text. If you don’t allow the microphone, you can still use the rest of the app.
The Korean audio you hear is pre-made synthesized speech downloaded from our server (see 2.3). If a clip isn’t available, your device’s own text-to-speech engine reads the sentence on the device.
5. How we use information
- To provide the app — lessons and review on your device, speed-quiz scoring and leaderboards, backup and restore, and unlocking the lesson packs you buy.
- To manage your account — keeping your guest or linked account, and deleting it when you ask.
- To show ads that keep the app free, and to measure them, through Google AdMob.
- To understand usage and fix problems — analytics, including in-app purchase events, and crash reports.
- To keep the service safe — preventing abuse, cheating and fraud.
- To respond to you when you contact us.
- To comply with the law when we are legally required to.
We don’t make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects. Automatic checks in the app, such as judging a spoken answer or scoring a quiz, affect only your practice results.
6. Who receives information
| Recipient | Role | What and why |
|---|---|---|
| Google LLC — Firebase (Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Functions, Analytics, Crashlytics, App Check, Installations, Cloud Messaging, Hosting) | Service provider that processes data on our behalf | The information in section 2, to run the app’s online features |
| Google LLC — AdMob | Third party that collects the data directly from your device through its SDK and also uses it for its own purposes | The advertising data in section 3 |
| Your device’s speech-recognition provider (usually Google on Android, Apple on iOS) | Provider of a system service on your device, under its own terms | Your voice while you speak, to turn it into text (section 4) |
| Google or Apple, when you link an account | Sign-in provider that you choose | They confirm your identity to us and give us the information in 2.1 |
| Apple (App Store) or Google (Google Play), when you buy or restore a pack | The store you buy the pack through, which processes the payment under its own terms and privacy policy | The store handles your payment and tells the app on your device which pack you bought; we never receive your payment details (2.5) |
Other app users see only your generated nickname and score, and only if you reach a lesson’s top 20. We do not sell or rent your name, email address or learning records to anyone, and we disclose information to public authorities only when the law requires it.
Google processes your information under the Google Privacy Policy and, for Firebase, under the data processing terms between Google and us.
7. Where information is processed
We are based in the Republic of Korea, and the app’s database is in Seoul. Most of our service providers’ systems are in the United States. While you use the app, your information is sent over encrypted connections (TLS) to the following places:
| Country or region | Information | Recipient |
|---|---|---|
| Republic of Korea (Seoul — Google Cloud region asia-northeast3) | Learning summary, speed-quiz records and backups, and processing by our server functions | Google LLC (Cloud Firestore, Cloud Functions) |
| United States | Account records: your random ID and, if you link an account, your email address, name, profile photo URL and account ID. Firebase Authentication runs only in US data centers. | Google LLC (Firebase Authentication) |
| United States and other countries where Google has data centers | Analytics, crash reports, App Check, installation IDs and messaging tokens, delivery of audio and of this website, and the advertising data that Google collects directly (section 3) | Google LLC |
Recipient: Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA — privacy inquiries through the Google privacy inquiry form. Each recipient keeps the information for the periods in section 8.
These transfers are needed to provide the app. Linking an account is optional, and if you don’t link one, the information in 2.1 beyond your random ID is never collected. Ad tracking can be limited as described in section 9. Otherwise, the only way to avoid these transfers is not to use the app, or to delete your account and the app. The Japanese and Korean versions of this policy add the transfer details required in those countries.
8. How long we keep information
| Information | Where | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Learning history (full record) | Your device | Until you delete your account in the app (which erases it), or delete the app or its data |
| Record of the packs you bought (which pack, which store, when) | Your device | Until you delete the app or its data. Deleting your account in the app keeps this record, because your purchases belong to your store account. |
| Your purchases | Your Apple or Google store account | Under Apple’s or Google’s policies — this is what “Restore purchases” uses |
| Summary, speed-quiz records and backup | Our database (Seoul) | Until you delete your account |
| Account record (random ID; if linked, email address, name, photo URL and account ID) | Firebase Authentication (US) | Until you delete your account |
| Remaining copies of anything deleted from the two places above | Google’s systems and backups | Erased by Google within about 180 days |
| IP addresses logged at sign-in | Firebase Authentication | A few weeks |
| Server logs | Google Cloud Logging | 30 days |
| Analytics events | Google Analytics for Firebase | Up to 14 months, then deleted automatically. Aggregated reports that don’t identify you may be kept longer. |
| Crash reports | Firebase Crashlytics | 90 days |
| Installation IDs and messaging tokens | Firebase | Until they are deleted or expire; they are not linked to your account in our database |
| Access logs for this website and the audio files | Firebase Hosting | A few months |
| Advertising data | Google AdMob | Under Google’s retention policy |
| Emails you send us | Our mailbox | Up to one year after we have handled your request |
We can’t restore deleted data. If you used only a guest account and removed the app without deleting your account, your summary and speed-quiz records stay on our server under a random ID that we cannot link to you. If you want them gone, delete your account in the app before you uninstall it.
9. Your choices
- Tracking on iPhone and iPad. When the app asks, choose whether to allow tracking. You can change this at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking (on iOS 15: Settings → Privacy → Tracking). If you don’t allow it, Google doesn’t receive your IDFA, and ads may be less relevant to you.
- Advertising ID on Android. In your device’s Settings, open Ads — usually under Privacy or Google; menu names vary by device — and delete or reset your advertising ID. After you delete it, apps no longer receive an advertising ID. On older devices, you can opt out of ads personalization on the same screen.
- Consent in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland. You can change the choices you made in Google’s consent message from the privacy options in the app’s Settings.
- Linking an account is optional. Without it, the app works the same, but it can’t restore your history on a new device.
- Microphone. Allow it only if you want speaking practice; you can turn it off again in your device settings.
- Study reminders are scheduled on your device by the app, not sent from our server. You can turn them off in your device’s notification settings.
- The app has no setting to turn off analytics or crash reporting. If you don’t want them, delete your account and the app.
10. Deleting your account and data
In the app: open Settings (⚙ at the top right of the home screen) → Account → Delete account. This works for guest accounts too. It immediately deletes your account record, summary, backup and speed-quiz records from our server — leaderboards are recalculated — and then the app erases the learning history on your device. Your purchases aren’t affected: they stay with your store account, and the app keeps its record of the packs you bought, so they stay unlocked.
Without the app: if you linked a Google or Apple account, email bullgomhare@gmail.com from that account’s email address. We delete your account and its server data within 7 days and reply when it’s done.
What remains and for how long, and how to reset your advertising ID: Delete your account and data.
11. Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
- tell you what personal information we hold about you, and give you a copy;
- correct information that is wrong;
- delete your information (you can also do this yourself in the app);
- stop or restrict using it, or object to how we use it;
- let you withdraw consent you have given — for example tracking permission on iOS, or your consent choices in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland. Withdrawing consent doesn’t affect processing that happened before.
Email bullgomhare@gmail.com from the address of your linked Google or Apple account so that we can confirm the request is yours; we may ask for more information if needed. A guest account has no email address or name attached, so we can’t match an email request to it — please use the in-app deletion instead. We reply within 10 days and don’t charge for requests, and we won’t treat you differently for exercising your rights. You can also complain to the data protection authority where you live.
12. Notice for US residents
Some US states, such as California, give their residents specific privacy rights. These laws ask businesses to describe their practices in the following way.
| Category | What the app collects | Disclosed to |
|---|---|---|
| Identifiers | Random account ID; if you link an account, your email address and account ID; advertising ID; on iOS, the identifier for vendor (IDFV); installation IDs; IP address | Google (service provider); Google AdMob (advertising) |
| Customer records (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)) | Name and email address, if you link Google or Apple | Google (service provider) |
| Internet or other electronic network activity | Lessons and quizzes completed, answers and scores, app usage events, ad interactions, and crash and diagnostic data | Google (service provider); Google AdMob (advertising) |
| Commercial information | The lesson packs you buy (product, price and currency), from in-app purchase events | Google (service provider) |
| Geolocation (approximate only) | Region derived from your IP address | Google (service provider); Google AdMob (advertising) |
| Inferences | Google may infer ad interests from advertising data under its own policies | Google AdMob |
We don’t collect sensitive personal information such as your precise location, government ID numbers, financial account details or the contents of your messages. We get information from you, from your device, and from Google or Apple when you link an account. Our purposes are listed in section 5 and retention periods in section 8.
Sale and sharing. We don’t sell personal information for money, and we don’t give your name, email address or learning records to advertisers. However, the Google Mobile Ads SDK collects device identifiers and usage data for advertising, including ads personalized across apps and websites. Some state laws treat this as a “sale”, as “sharing” or as “targeted advertising”. To opt out, don’t allow tracking on iOS (or turn it off later), or delete your advertising ID on Android — see section 9 — or email us. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16.
Your rights. Depending on your state, you may have the right to know and access, delete and correct your personal information, and to opt out of its sale, sharing or use for targeted advertising. Send requests as described in section 11. You may use an authorized agent; we may ask the agent for proof of authorization and ask you to confirm your identity. If we decline a request, you can appeal by replying to our decision, and we will answer your appeal in writing. We will not discriminate against you for exercising these rights.
13. Users in Japan and Korea
Japan: the 日本語版 includes the information required by Japan’s Act on the Protection of Personal Information, including provision to third parties in foreign countries, and by the external transmission rules of Japan’s Telecommunications Business Act.
Korea: as a Korean operator, we follow Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act. The 한국어판 is our reference version and includes the items that law requires, including details of overseas transfers.
14. Children
The app is made for adults. It is not directed to anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. We do not mark ad requests as directed to children. If you believe a child has given us personal information — for example by linking an account — please contact us and we will delete it.
15. Security
- All communication between the app and our services is encrypted (HTTPS/TLS).
- Our database rules let each account read and write only its own records. Speed-quiz scores can be written only by our server, which times quizzes using server time.
- App Check helps block requests that don’t come from the genuine app.
- We collect as little as we can: you don’t need a name or email address to use the app, and analytics events contain only lesson IDs and numbers.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affecting your information occurs, we will notify you and the authorities as the law requires.
16. This website
This website is a static site hosted on Firebase Hosting. It uses no cookies, analytics or ads. Google processes your IP address to deliver the pages and keeps access logs for a few months.
17. Changes and language versions
If we change this policy, we will post the new version on this page with a new effective date. We will announce important changes — such as collecting a new type of information — on this page at least 7 days before they take effect, and in the app where possible.
This policy is published in English, Japanese and Korean. Each version also contains the notices required where its readers live (US state laws in this version; Japan’s APPI and Telecommunications Business Act in the Japanese version; Korea’s PIPA in the Korean version). The Korean version is our reference text; if the versions differ, we will apply whichever is more favorable to you.