Who we are
Purlingual is an iPhone app for learning Mandarin Chinese and preparing for the HSK exam, made by Chameleon Labs LLC, 312 W 2nd St Unit #A1241, Casper, WY 82601, USA. This policy covers the app and this website, purlingual.com. “We” means Chameleon Labs. Questions go to support@purlingual.com.
What we collect
Your account
You sign in with Apple or Google. We receive an account ID and the email address that Apple or Google shares with us. With Sign in with Apple you can choose to hide your email, and then we only see a relay address. Apple or Google may also share your name; it stays on your iPhone and isn’t stored on our servers. We never get your Apple or Google password.
Your learning
To save your progress and plan your reviews, we store what you do in the app: the words and lessons you’ve studied, your answers and scores, practice and mock exam results, your HSK level and exam date, your settings, and answers you give during onboarding, such as where you heard about Purlingual.
Weekly exam leagues show other learners a made-up name for you and your points for the week. They never show your email or account name.
Your voice and written answers
The microphone is only used when you start a speaking exercise, and only after you allow it. To turn your recording into text, it goes to OpenAI (in the app) or Google Cloud Speech-to-Text (on the web version). While you speak, the app may also use Apple’s speech recognition for live feedback, which may process audio on your iPhone or on Apple’s servers. The text is then sent to Anthropic to mark it. Answers you type, in lessons and in exam practice, also go to Anthropic (and for some lesson checks, OpenAI) for marking and feedback. We don’t keep your recordings after they’ve been turned into text. The text, your score and the feedback are saved with your progress.
Purchases
Apple handles every payment in the app, so we never see your card or billing details. Apple tells us which subscription you have, its price, whether it’s a free trial, and when it renews, ends or is refunded. If you subscribe on the web version instead, Stripe handles the payment and tells us the same things.
How you use the app
We record app events, such as opening a screen, finishing a lesson, seeing the paywall or starting a trial, together with your account ID, a random ID for your device, your iOS version, app version, your subscription status, and an approximate location (country and region) that Amplitude estimates from your IP address. We use this to find what helps people learn and what doesn’t.
Which ad brought you here
If you came from an ad, we want to know which one, so we can stop paying for ads that don’t work:
- Apple Search Ads. Apple tells the app which Apple ad campaign, if any, led to the download, along with the country. This doesn’t use your advertising identifier.
- TikTok and Meta (Facebook and Instagram). The app tells TikTok and Meta when it’s installed and opened, when you create an account, and when you start a trial or subscribe, including the subscription’s price. Meta also learns when a subscription renews. They also receive technical information such as your device model, iOS version, IP address and app version, and TikTok receives reports if its own code in the app crashes. If you allow tracking when the app asks, they also receive your iPhone’s advertising identifier and can match these events to ads you saw in their apps. If you don’t allow it, they only get Apple’s anonymous install counts (SKAdNetwork) and the events above without that identifier.
On this website
purlingual.com uses Vercel Analytics, which counts page visits without cookies, and the Google Ads tag, which uses cookies to measure whether our Google ads lead to visits, installs, and trials or subscriptions started on the web version. Reading the site doesn’t need an account. If you sign in to the web version of Purlingual, it uses the same account and learning data as the app, and a sign-in cookie keeps you signed in.
Purlingual in Claude
If you add Purlingual to Claude or another AI assistant, the assistant calls our server when your question needs it. We receive only what it sends to a tool, such as the word you looked up or the level you asked for, plus the name of the assistant app and, when the assistant uses one, a random ID for the connection. We don’t receive your conversation, your name or your assistant account, and nothing links these calls to a Purlingual account.
We record each call in Amplitude (the tool, what was sent to it, the assistant app and any connection ID) to see how the connector is used, and count calls per minute, per tool and, where the assistant keeps a connection ID, per connection, to limit how many can be made; those counts are deleted once they’re over an hour old, at the next cleanup. We don’t store IP addresses, though our hosting provider’s logs see them. On claude.ai and in the Claude apps, the calls come from Anthropic’s addresses, not yours; Claude Code and assistants running on your computer call from your own address. What you type in Claude is handled under Anthropic’s privacy policy.
Why we use it
- to run the app: sign you in, save your progress, plan reviews, mark your answers and give feedback;
- to provide and manage your subscription;
- to understand how the app is used and improve lessons and features;
- to measure which ads lead to installs and subscriptions, and to spend less on the ones that don’t;
- to answer you when you write to us;
- to prevent abuse and keep the service secure, and to meet legal obligations.
For people in the UK and EU, our legal bases are: the contract with you (running the app and your subscription), our legitimate interests (analytics, security, and measuring ads without tracking), your consent (tracking for ads after you allow it, and microphone access), and legal obligations.
Who receives it
We don’t sell your personal information for money. These companies receive it so we can run Purlingual:
- Supabase stores your account and learning data.
- Vercel hosts this website and the app’s server.
- Apple handles sign-in, payments, speech recognition and Apple Search Ads.
- Stripe handles payments for web subscriptions.
- Google handles Google sign-in, speech-to-text on the web version, and the Google Ads tag on this website.
- OpenAI turns your speaking recordings into text and checks some lesson answers.
- Anthropic marks your answers and writes feedback.
- Amplitude stores app usage events for analysis.
- TikTok and Meta receive the ad measurement events described above, and use them under their own terms and privacy policies as well.
Some US state laws call sharing data with ad companies for measurement “sharing” or “targeted advertising”. To opt out, don’t allow tracking when the app asks, or turn it off later as described under Your choices. We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect people’s safety or our rights, or as part of a sale or merger of our business.
Your choices
- Tracking. The app asks once whether you allow tracking. You can change your answer any time in your iPhone’s Settings › Privacy & Security › Tracking.
- Microphone and speech recognition. Turn them off in your iPhone’s Settings › Purlingual. Speaking exercises won’t work without them, but everything else will.
- Notifications. Reminders are optional; turn them off in Settings in the app or on your iPhone.
- Delete your account. In the app, open Settings and tap Delete account. This permanently deletes your account and all your progress from our database. It doesn’t cancel an App Store subscription; see Support for how to cancel.
- See, correct or export your data. Email support@purlingual.com. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to object to or restrict how we use your data, to withdraw consent, and to complain to your local data protection authority. We won’t treat you differently for using these rights. We may need to confirm the request comes from your account.
How long we keep it
We keep your account and learning data until you delete your account. Usage events already sent to Amplitude stay there after you delete your account; email us if you want them deleted too. Connector calls (see Purlingual in Claude) are kept in Amplitude the same way. Apple keeps its own payment records, and we keep subscription records as long as tax and accounting law requires. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Apple, TikTok and Meta keep what they receive under their own policies.
Children
Purlingual isn’t meant for children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from them. If you think a child under 13 has given us information, email us and we’ll delete it.
Where your data is processed
We’re based in the United States, and the companies above process data in the US and other countries. When data leaves the UK or EU, it’s covered by the safeguards these companies provide, such as standard contractual clauses.
Security
Data travels encrypted between the app and our servers, and access to our database is restricted. No system is perfectly secure, so we can’t promise that information will never be accessed without permission.
Changes
When we change this policy, we’ll post the new version here and update the date at the top.
Contact
Email support@purlingual.com, or write to Chameleon Labs LLC, 312 W 2nd St Unit #A1241, Casper, WY 82601, USA.