Privacy and your data
Written so it can be given to a customer who asks "what do you know about me?", and so a support agent can answer accurately without guessing.
No account, no sign-up
Verbie has no login, no registration, no email address and no password. There is nothing to sign in to, and Verbie does not know the customer's name or email address.
To keep progress and daily goals consistent, Verbie generates a random anonymous identifier the first time it runs and stores it in the device keychain. It is a random value, not derived from the customer, the device's serial number, or their Apple Account.
What stays on the device only
| Data | Notes |
|---|---|
| Bookmarks | All saved verbs, adjectives, sentences, words, numbers and phrases |
| Learning progress | Which questions were answered, whether correctly, how long each took, and when each is next due for review |
| Settings | Practice levels, voice, voice speed, speaker gap, automatic speaker mode |
| Voice recordings | The customer's own recordings from the Speaker activities |
| Downloaded audio | Cached recordings, in Settings → Storage |
None of this is uploaded. It is included in an iCloud or encrypted local device backup, which is how it moves to a replacement phone.
Voice recordings specifically: only the most recent recording is kept, it lives in temporary storage, it is overwritten by the next recording, and it is never sent anywhere. Verbie does no speech recognition and no pronunciation scoring.
What is sent to Verbie's servers
| Data | Why | What goes with it |
|---|---|---|
| XP, streak, last practice date | So progress survives a reinstall | The anonymous identifier |
| Daily goal requests and completions | To issue one goal a day and record whether it was met | The anonymous identifier, the practice levels requested, the quiz result |
| Free preview time used | To apply the 30-minute preview consistently across the customer's devices | An App Store transaction identifier from Apple |
| Text typed into Translate | To translate it and to generate spoken audio | The anonymous identifier |
| Translation history | So your past translations and saved phrases are still there next time | The anonymous identifier |
| Content problem reports | So the team can fix a bad sentence or recording | The question ID, level, category, the problem type, the app version, and the question's own content |
Nothing here includes a name, an email address, contacts, location, photos, or the customer's voice.
What Apple handles, not Verbie
Payment for the membership goes entirely through the App Store. Verbie never sees card details, billing address, or the customer's Apple Account email — only whether an active membership exists.
Permissions Verbie asks for
| Permission | Why | If declined |
|---|---|---|
| Microphone | Recording the customer's voice in the Speaker activities | Everything else works; only recording is unavailable |
Verbie does not request contacts, location, photos, calendar, or notifications.
Deleting data
- Bookmarks and translations — remove individually (swipe to delete), or delete the app to remove all device-side data.
- Cached audio — Settings → Storage → Clear Audio Cache.
- Server-side progress — there is no in-app control for this. A customer who wants their backed-up XP, streak and daily-goal history deleted should be escalated; the identifier stored on their device is needed to locate the records.
For support: the anonymous identifier is held in the device keychain, and keychain entries generally survive deleting an app. A reinstall on the same device therefore usually re-attaches the same identifier, and the customer's XP, streak and translation history come back with it. Never tell a customer that reinstalling deletes their server-side data, and do not promise a deletion timeline — escalate the request.
Answers to common privacy questions
"Do you record me?" Only when the customer taps Record, and only on their own device. The recording never leaves the phone and is overwritten by the next one.
"Is my typing in Translate stored?" Yes. The text is sent to Verbie's servers to be translated and spoken, and the translation is kept there so the history is available next time. It is tied only to the anonymous identifier, never to a name or email address. Deleting an entry in the history sheet deletes it from the server too.
"Can you see my quiz answers?" Individual answers stay on the device. Only the totals — XP, streak, last practice date — and daily-goal outcomes are sent.
"Do you sell my data or run ads?" Verbie has no advertising and no third-party analytics or tracking SDKs.
"Can I move my data to a new phone?" Restore the new phone from an iCloud or encrypted local backup and everything comes across, including bookmarks. A fresh install on a new phone starts over: bookmarks are lost, because they live only on the old device. XP, streak and translation history are held on Verbie's servers, but they are reachable only through the anonymous identifier from the old device — so on a genuinely fresh install they do not come back either.