Privacy policy

Ikou Benkyou is run by Nodular Pty Ltd (ABN 46 080 093 134), an Australian company, which is responsible for your personal information. We follow the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988, and, if you live in the UK or European Union, the GDPR. Questions go to support@ikoubenkyou.com.

• Your account: your email address, the name you choose, and your sign-in (your password is held by Amazon Cognito; we never see it).
• Your learning: lessons opened and finished, your answers and how long they took, exam results, XP, study lists and settings, so your progress follows you between devices.
• What you make: the text, photos and recordings you give us to make blocks, and the blocks, audio and pictures made from them.
• Purchases: your plan, payments, refunds and AI credit balance. Card details go straight to Stripe or Apple; we never see them.
• Your devices: the app version and platform, a push token if you turn on notifications, and technical logs of requests (such as times and errors) that carry your account id.
• How you use the apps: the screens you open, the buttons you tap, milestones such as signing up or finishing your first lesson and, for some visits, a replay of the screens you saw, recorded under a coded id instead of your name or email.
• What you send us: emails to support and reports you flag in a lesson.

• to run Ikou Benkyou: sign you in, save and sync your progress, and choose what to review next;
• to make the blocks, audio and pictures you ask for, and charge the credits they cost;
• to take payments, give refunds, and keep the records tax law requires;
• to answer you, and to fix problems and keep the service secure and fair;
• to improve the lessons, using answers that are no longer tied to you by name;
• to see which parts of the apps work and where learners get stuck;
• to email you about your account, and about what's new when you've agreed to hear from us. Every such email has a way to stop them.

We don't sell your personal information, show you ads, or use what you make to train AI models.

We share your information only with the companies that run parts of Ikou Benkyou for us, only what each needs, and under their own privacy and security commitments. Some are outside Australia, so your information may be stored or processed overseas.

• Amazon Web Services: Hosting, sign-in (Cognito), storage and the AI models that make blocks (Bedrock). (Australia, with some services in the United States)
• Stripe: Payments, receipts and tax on the web. (United States and elsewhere)
• Apple: App Store purchases, and speech recognition when you practise speaking on iPhone or iPad. (United States and elsewhere)
• Google: Speech recognition when you practise speaking on Android. (United States and elsewhere)
• OpenAI: Drawing pictures for the blocks you make. (United States)
• ElevenLabs: Voicing the blocks you make. (United States and the European Union)
• Resend: Sending email, such as sign-in codes and what's new. (United States)
• Expo: Delivering push notifications to your phone, when you turn them on. (United States)
• Sentry: Error reports when something breaks, which leave out your name and email. (United States)
• PostHog: Product analytics: which screens are used and where learners get stuck, under a coded id instead of your name or email. (United States)

We may also disclose information when the law requires it, or to protect learners or the service from fraud or abuse.

• Your account and learning, for as long as your account is open.
• Your answers in full detail, for 90 days. After that they're kept for improving the lessons under a coded id instead of your account, and once your account is deleted they can't be tied to you at all.
• Request logs, for 30 days.
• Payment and credit records, for five years, as Australian tax law requires.
• Database backups, until they expire on their own schedule. Data you've erased isn't restored from them, and it leaves them as they roll over.

You can delete your account at any time, from Profile in the web app or Settings, Account in the iPhone and iPad app. The deleting your account page has the steps, and how to ask us if you can't sign in.

Your account is erased a calendar month after you ask, less a day. Until then you can sign in and choose to keep it. Premium ends straight away, and the time you haven't used is refunded.

When it's erased, we keep only what the law makes us keep:

• the credits ledger, for five years, as a financial record;
• payment and refund records, with your account id removed;
• Stripe's and Apple's own records of your payments, under their policies;
• a record that you asked for deletion and that it was done;
• learning answers that can no longer be tied to you.

You can ask to see, correct, download or delete your personal information, and, where the GDPR applies, to restrict or object to how we use it. When you delete your account, you can download your data as one file first, and you can ask us for a copy at any time.

For anything else, write to support@ikoubenkyou.com. We answer within 30 days. If you're not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au, or to the data protection authority where you live.

Your information is encrypted between your device and our servers, and stored with access limited to the people and systems that need it. No service is perfectly secure, so if we learn of a breach likely to cause you serious harm, we'll tell you and the regulator as the law requires.

Ikou Benkyou is for people 13 and over, and under-18s need a parent or guardian's agreement. If you think a child under 13 has given us their information, write to support@ikoubenkyou.com and we'll delete it.

The date at the top says when this policy last changed. If a change affects how we use information you've already given us, we'll tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect.