This Privacy Policy explains what personal information Pronounce Korean collects when you use our app, our website, and our paid programs, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices you have.
Pronounce Korean is operated from the Republic of Korea and is used by learners all over the world. We follow the Korean Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), and, where they apply to you, the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and United States state privacy laws.
If you only want the short version: we collect what we need to teach you Korean and to run your account. We record your voice because that is how pronunciation practice works. We do not sell your personal information.
1. Who we are
Pronounce Korean (the "Service", "we", "us") is the controller of the personal information described in this policy.
Business name: Pronounce Korean
Representative: Youseop Lee
Address: 56, Jeongja-ro, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea
Business registration number: 221-30-57354
Mail-order sales registration number: 2023-Seongnam Bundang B-1476
Privacy contact: youseop@speakbridges.com
The same address and email above serve as our privacy officer contact for the purposes of the Korean Personal Information Protection Act.
2. Information we collect
2.1 Information you give us
Account information: your email address and name. If you sign in with Apple, Google, or another provider, we receive your email address and basic profile details from that provider, not your password.
Profile information: your profile image, your country, your native language, and your learning goals, where you choose to provide them.
Voice recordings: audio of you speaking Korean. This is covered separately in section 3.
Program and event information: if you join a paid challenge or a live class, the information you submit when you sign up, and your attendance.
Support and feedback: messages you send us, bug reports, survey answers, and anything you attach to them.
2.2 Information we collect automatically
Learning activity: lessons opened, expressions practised, quiz answers, pronunciation scores, streaks, and timestamps. This is what your progress screens are built from.
Device and technical information: device model, operating system version, app version, language, time zone, and IP address.
Usage and diagnostics: screens viewed, features used, crash reports, and error logs.
Push notification identifiers: a device token, if you allow notifications.
2.3 Information from others
App stores: Apple and Google tell us that a purchase or subscription is valid, and whether it renewed, lapsed, or was refunded. They do not give us your full payment card details.
Payment providers: for purchases made on our website, PayPal confirms the payment and gives us the transaction identifier and the billing details needed to issue receipts and refunds.
Sign-in providers: Apple, Google, and similar providers, if you use them to sign in.
3. Voice recordings
Pronunciation practice only works if you speak, so the Service records your voice. We want to be specific about what that means.
What we do with your recordings. When you complete a speaking exercise, your recording is sent to our servers and to speech recognition services so the words you said can be converted to text and compared with the target sentence. That comparison produces your pronunciation score and the feedback you see on screen. We also use recordings to investigate scoring problems you report and to improve how accurately the Service scores pronunciation.
What we do not do. We do not use your recordings to identify or verify who you are. We do not create a voiceprint for recognising you as a speaker, and we do not match your voice against a database of people. We do not sell your recordings, and we do not publish them or make them audible to other learners. Your speaking practice is private to your account.
Who can hear them. Recordings are stored in our cloud storage and processed by the speech recognition providers listed in section 5. A small number of our staff can access recordings when they are needed to answer a support request from you or to fix a defect.
Where the law treats voice as sensitive. Some jurisdictions, including the state of Texas, treat voice data as a biometric identifier regardless of how it is used. Where such a law applies to you, this section together with the consent you give when you first record is our notice to you, and your continued use of speaking exercises is your consent to the recording described here. You can withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us and asking us to stop, and you can ask us to delete your recordings as described in section 6.
4. How we use your information
To create and run your account, and to sign you in.
To deliver lessons, score pronunciation, track progress, and personalise what you see next.
To send you reminders and study notifications, if you have allowed them.
To deliver the paid challenge programs and live classes you sign up for, including the welcome email, class materials, and any completion credit.
To process purchases, verify subscriptions, and handle refunds.
To answer your questions and provide support.
To keep the Service secure, prevent fraud and abuse, and diagnose problems.
To understand which features help people learn, using aggregated and statistical analysis.
To send you service and marketing emails where you have asked for them or where the law allows, always with a way to unsubscribe.
To meet our legal, tax, and accounting obligations.
5. Who we share your information with
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. We do share it with service providers who process it on our behalf, under contract, and only for the purposes we set.
Amazon Web Services: hosting, databases, and file storage, including voice recordings.
Google Cloud (Speech-to-Text and Gemini): converting your speech to text and generating learning feedback.
Firebase (Google): push notifications.
Sentry: crash and error reporting.
Mixpanel: product analytics.
PayPal: payments for purchases made on our website.
Apple and Google: in-app purchases and subscription management.
Email delivery providers: sending account, class, and marketing email.
We may also disclose personal information when we are legally required to, when we need to establish or defend a legal claim, when it is necessary to protect someone's safety, and to a buyer or successor if the business is sold or reorganised. If that happens, we will tell you before your information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
6. How long we keep your information
We keep different information for different periods, based on why we needed it in the first place.
Account and profile information: for as long as your account is open. When you delete your account, we anonymise your account records so they can no longer be linked back to you.
Learning activity and scores: for as long as your account is open, so your progress history stays intact. Older raw practice logs may be moved to cold archive storage after ninety days.
Voice recordings: recordings are stored separately from your account records and are not automatically deleted when you delete your account. If you want your recordings erased, email us and we will delete them within thirty days. We are working to make recording deletion automatic on account deletion, and we will update this policy when that ships.
Support messages: up to three years, so we can follow up on unresolved issues.
Security and session logs: up to ninety days after the session expires.
Backups: deleted information can persist in encrypted backups for a limited period until those backups roll over. It is isolated from active use during that time.
Korean law requires us to keep certain transaction records regardless of account deletion:
Records of contracts and withdrawal of subscription: five years
Records of payment and supply of goods or services: five years
Records of consumer complaints and dispute handling: three years
Records of display and advertising: six months
7. Legal bases, if you are in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland
Performance of a contract: running your account, delivering lessons, scoring pronunciation, and providing the paid programs you buy.
Legitimate interests: keeping the Service secure, preventing fraud, fixing defects, and improving how well the Service teaches, balanced against your rights.
Consent: marketing email, push notifications, optional cookies, and, where a local law requires consent for voice recording, the recording itself. You can withdraw consent at any time, and it is as easy to withdraw as it was to give.
Legal obligation: tax, accounting, and consumer protection record keeping.
8. International transfers
We are based in Korea and our service providers operate in several countries, including the United States. That means your information is transferred outside the country you live in.
Where we transfer personal information out of the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, and the UK Addendum for UK transfers, together with additional safeguards where needed. You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards we use by emailing the address in section 1.
For users in Korea, personal information is processed overseas by the providers named in section 5 for the purposes described there, for as long as the relevant retention period in section 6 applies.
9. Your rights and choices
Wherever you live, you can:
Access the personal information we hold about you and get a copy of it.
Correct information that is wrong or incomplete.
Delete your account from the app, at any time.
Ask us to delete your voice recordings.
Turn push notifications off in your device settings, and unsubscribe from marketing email using the link in any such email.
If you are in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, you also have the right to restrict processing, to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, to data portability, and to withdraw consent. You have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority, in the country where you live, where you work, or where you think the problem happened.
If you are in the United States, you have the right to know what we collect and why, to access and port your information, to correct it, to delete it, and to appeal if we turn your request down. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for targeted advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of, but you may still ask us to confirm that. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.
If you are in Korea, you may request to inspect your personal information, to have it transmitted, to correct errors, to delete it, and to suspend processing, and you may withdraw consent. You may also make these requests through a legal representative or agent. If we refuse a request, we will tell you why and how to object. You may raise a dispute with the Personal Information Dispute Mediation Committee or report it to the Korea Internet and Security Agency Privacy Complaint Centre.
To exercise any of these rights, email youseop@speakbridges.com. We may need to confirm who you are before we act, and we will respond within the period the applicable law requires. We do not charge a fee unless a request is clearly unfounded or excessive.
10. Children
The Service is not intended for children. You must be at least 16 years old to create an account or to join a paid challenge program. If you are in a country whose law sets a different minimum age for consenting to online services on your own, that age applies to you instead, and it is never lower than 13.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children below the applicable age. If you believe a child has given us their information, email us and we will delete it.
11. Security
We protect your information with encryption in transit and at rest, access controls that limit who on our team can reach personal information, separate production and development environments, and logging of administrative access. Recordings and uploaded files are stored in private cloud storage that is not publicly listable.
No service can promise perfect security. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you and the relevant authority as required by law.
12. Cookies and analytics
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies that are strictly necessary to sign you in and keep the site working, and analytics that help us understand which pages and features are used. Where the law requires your consent for non-essential cookies, we ask for it before setting them, and you can change your mind at any time. You can also block or delete cookies in your browser, though parts of the site may stop working.
We do not respond to browser "Do Not Track" signals, because there is no common standard for them.
13. Changes to this policy
We update this policy when the Service changes or the law changes. If a change is material, we will tell you in the app or by email at least seven days before it takes effect, and we will say what changed. The version in force and its effective date are always shown at web.pronouncekorean.com/policies.
14. Contact us
Questions, requests, or complaints about privacy go to youseop@speakbridges.com, or by post to Pronounce Korean, 56, Jeongja-ro, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea.
We will always try to resolve your concern directly first.