Privacy Policy

1. Who is responsible

Manda SENC, a general partnership established at 418, avenue des Pins Ouest, suite 40, Montréal (Québec) H2W 1S2, Canada, operates Aaronsan and decides how your personal information is used.

Our person in charge of the protection of personal information handles every question and request about privacy. Write to info@aaronsan.com with the subject “Privacy”, or use the contact form and choose the Privacy category.

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2. What we collect, why, and for how long

We collect only what we need to run Aaronsan.

When you choose Apple, Google, LINE or Discord to sign in, that provider tells us who you are — we never receive your password. What we receive is limited to an account identifier, your email address and, when the provider sends them, your display name and profile picture. The email address serves four purposes: it identifies your account, it confirms the account is yours, it lets you recover access if you can no longer sign in, and it delivers the messages about your payments. We never use it for advertising, we never sell it, and we never post anything in your name on the provider's service. Signing in also creates a link to that provider account so you can sign in again; we keep that link, and the tokens that make it work, for as long as your account exists. What the provider does on its side is governed by its own privacy policy.

An email address is needed to create an account. Unless you sign in with Apple, Google, LINE or Discord, you also choose a password. Everything else in your profile is optional.

The Free plan includes ads. They are not based on your personal information: we do not sell your personal information, we do not share it for advertising, and we do not use advertising trackers. If we ever offer personalised ads, we will update this policy and ask for your consent first. Ads may promote other businesses, including businesses related to Manda SENC; opening an ad takes you to the advertiser's website, where its own privacy policy applies.

What other members see. Your profile can be opened only by members signed in to Aaronsan; it is never shown to visitors who are not signed in or to search engines. It shows your username, profile picture, banner, the date you joined, your rank, the languages you study, your streak, EXP, flames, lessons finished, badges, completed quests, stickers, your top achievements, and how many members you follow and how many follow you. Members who follow you also see which decks, characters and kanji you have finished, the level you are studying, the practice tests you have passed and your progress in quests, and they may receive a weekly email summarising your study days, EXP, badges and rank. Your email address, date of birth, time zone and payment details are never shown to other members. Your profile is visible to members by default. To make it private, go to Settings, Public profile, and turn off Visible to members: your profile and progress are then visible to you alone, no one can start following you, and members who already follow you no longer see your progress. Your username, without your picture or statistics, still appears in the follower lists of members who follow you or whom you follow, and your username and picture remain visible to the member taking part in a challenge with you.

3. Voice recordings and speech features

Speaking exercises and the voice step of onboarding use your microphone. Recording starts only when you tap the record button, and it stops after a few seconds.

The recording is sent over an encrypted connection to our servers, then to a cloud speech-assessment service that compares it with the expected Japanese and returns scores. This service is an artificial intelligence system run by a provider acting on our behalf. It processes the recording only to calculate your scores and may not use the audio for its own purposes, such as training its models.

We delete the recording as soon as the score is calculated. We keep the scores, the expected text, the duration of the recording, and the word-by-word results so you can follow your progress.

We never use your voice to identify you, and we do not create a voiceprint.

In the apps, the live transcription shown while you speak uses your phone's speech recognition service, provided by Apple or Google. Depending on your device settings, the audio may be processed on their servers under their own privacy policies. If you refuse the speech recognition permission, the live transcription is not shown.

Before your first recording, we ask for your permission, and we record your choice and its date. If you refuse, speaking exercises and the voice step of the placement test are unavailable, because they cannot work without sending the recording. You can change your choice at any time in your profile, and refuse or withdraw microphone access in your browser or phone settings.

4. The iPhone and Android apps

The apps ask for a permission only when a feature needs it. You can change your choice at any time in your phone settings:

• Microphone: to record your pronunciation (section 3).
• Speech recognition: to show a live transcription while you speak (section 3).
• Photos: to choose a profile picture. Only the picture you select is sent to us.
• Notifications: for study and exam reminders. They are scheduled on your phone, and your reminder settings are not sent to our servers.

In the iPhone app, you can also allow us to share information about your use with Apple when you ask Apple for a refund (section 5). This setting is off by default.

To work offline and load faster, the apps store the following on your phone: your sign-in session (in the phone's secure storage), recently loaded data, downloaded audio, and reviews waiting to be sent. Signing out deletes this data, except your reminder settings.

Ads in the Free plan do not use your device's advertising identifier, and the apps include no analytics or tracking tools.

5. Payments

On the website, payments are handled by Stripe. You enter your card details directly with Stripe; they never reach our servers. We receive the result of the payment, the plan, the amount, invoices, and a Stripe customer reference.

To prevent fraud, Stripe collects information about your device and how you use its payment page. Stripe may also use this information for its own fraud prevention and legal obligations, as explained in its privacy policy.

Stripe Privacy Policy

To apply the refund guarantee fairly, we check whether a refund or a bank dispute has already been recorded for the same email address or the same card, using a coded fingerprint of your email address and a card fingerprint provided by Stripe. Requests that pass these checks are refunded automatically; the others are reviewed by a person.

In the apps, purchases are handled by Apple or Google under their own privacy policies. They send us the product bought, a transaction reference, and the status and dates of the purchase, so we can unlock your access. We never receive your payment details.

If you ask Apple to refund an App Store purchase, Apple may ask us for information about your use. We answer only if you turned on Share my usage with Apple for refund requests in the iPhone app. In that case, we tell Apple that the content was delivered, that free content was available, and, for a subscription, what share of the current period has passed, so Apple can decide. You can turn this setting off at any time.

6. Who receives your information

We share personal information only in the following cases:

• Service providers acting on our behalf: hosting and infrastructure, database, file storage, email delivery, speech assessment, security and bot protection, and error monitoring. They receive only what their task requires, act on our instructions, and are bound by written agreements that require them to protect your information at least as well as we do and forbid any other use.
• Payment providers: Stripe, Apple, and Google, as described in section 5.
• Legal obligations: when the law, a court order, or a competent authority requires it, or to establish or defend a legal claim.
• Business transfer: if Aaronsan is sold or merged, the buyer must respect this policy, and we will inform you beforehand.

Other members see only what section 2 lists under What other members see, and only while they are signed in. Aaronsan has no leaderboards, and your profile is never shown outside the service.

7. Where your information is processed

Our service providers process information in Canada, the United States, and possibly other countries, including countries of the European Union. Information stored outside your country may be accessible to the courts, law enforcement, and national security authorities of that country, under its laws.

Before entrusting information to a provider outside Québec, we assess whether it will be adequately protected, and we sign agreements that require that protection. For users in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, transfers rely on an adequacy decision or on standard contractual clauses approved by the authorities.

8. Cookies and similar technologies

Cookies and browser storage are small pieces of information saved in your browser. Most of the ones we use are necessary: they keep you signed in, protect your account, remember your language and time zone, and remember your cookie choice. One kind is optional, diagnostics, and it stays off unless you turn it on. The table below is built from the same list the app uses, so it always matches what we actually save.

What we never do:

• We use no advertising cookies.
• We do not sell or share your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.
• We do not track you across other websites or apps.

Payments: checkout happens on a page hosted by Stripe, our payment processor, which uses its own cookies there to process the payment and prevent fraud.

How to change your mind: use the button below, the Cookie settings link at the bottom of every page, or Settings in your account. Your new choice applies right away. If you turn diagnostics off, recording stops and what it kept in your browser is deleted.

Cookie settings

You can also delete or block cookies in your browser settings, usually under Privacy or Site data. If you block the necessary ones, you will not be able to stay signed in.

Global Privacy Control: if your browser sends this signal and you have not made a choice on this browser yet, we treat it as a refusal: optional cookies stay off and we do not show the cookie banner. You can still turn diagnostics on yourself in Cookie settings.

When we ask again: we keep your choice for 6 months, then ask again. If you said yes to optional cookies and we later add a new kind, we ask you again before using it.

Diagnostics, only if you turn it on: we measure how fast some pages load, and when an error happens we record a replay of the page. In that replay, all text is hidden and images and media are blocked. The replay is sent to the error-monitoring provider that works for us and is used only to fix the error. Without diagnostics, we still receive a short technical report when something breaks, with no replay.

Proof of your choice: each time you make a choice, we keep a record of it with the date, your choices, the version of this section and a random identifier, plus your account if you are signed in. We keep these records for 3 years to show what you agreed to, then delete them.

9. Emails and notifications

• Account and security emails (verification codes, password reset): needed to use your account.
• Billing emails (payment receipts, failed payments, the notice before an annual website renewal, cancellation, end of a subscription): sent whenever they concern your plan, even if reminders are turned off.
• Emails about your use of Aaronsan, all on by default: the daily study reminder (only on days you have not studied, at 5 pm in your time zone unless you choose another time), the evening study recap, reminders after 7, 30 and 90 days without study, new follower alerts, the weekly summary of the members you follow, the end of a study break, reminders before your paid access ends after a cancellation, and alerts about sign-ins from a new device. You can turn each one off in Settings, under Email and notification preferences, or with the one-click unsubscribe link in each email; the change applies immediately. These emails contain no advertising or offers, and each one identifies Manda SENC and gives our postal address. Promotional messages (offers, discounts, product announcements, newsletters) are sent only with your prior consent: we send none today, and if we ever offer them, they will be off by default, sent only if you opt in, and you will be able to withdraw your consent at any time.

Notifications on a computer stay off until you choose Turn on notifications and allow them in your browser, separately in each browser. We then keep the delivery address your browser gives us, and each notification passes through the push service of that browser's maker. They cover study time, the end of a break, the morning quest, new followers, challenges and the end of your paid access; those with a matching option in Email and notification preferences follow it. To stop them all, block notifications for Aaronsan in your browser settings. In the apps, study and exam reminders stay off until you turn on Remind me to study; they are scheduled on your phone and can be turned off in the app or in your phone settings.

10. How we protect your information

• every connection is encrypted (HTTPS/TLS)
• passwords and sign-in codes are hashed and never stored in readable form
• the database restricts each account to its own data and shows other members only what section 2 lists
• payment details never reach our servers, and voice recordings are not kept
• access to personal information is limited to the people who need it for their work

No measure removes every risk. If a confidentiality incident creates a risk of serious harm, we notify the people concerned and the competent authorities, such as the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec, as the law requires, and we record every incident.

11. When information is deleted

We keep personal information only as long as needed for the purposes in section 2, then we delete it or anonymise it. The periods are listed in the table in section 2.

When you close your account, your information is erased from our active systems immediately, and the copies that remain in backups disappear as those backups are replaced. We then keep only what the law requires or allows, linked to an internal identifier: billing and tax records, withdrawal and refund requests, the history of your consent choices, a closure record (date, plan and age of the account) and a coded fingerprint of your email address used to prevent fraud, for 6 years; information needed for an ongoing dispute or legal claim; and a coded fingerprint of any email address that bounced or reported our emails as spam, so we never write to it again.

The words you look up in the dictionary are detached from your account after 90 days, or immediately when you close your account. Only a per-word, per-day counter remains, which can no longer be traced back to you.

12. Deleting your Aaronsan account

You can delete your Aaronsan account and its data, whether you use the website, the iPhone app, or the Android app published by Manda SENC.

• Step 1. Cancel any subscription bought in the App Store or on Google Play, in the store settings. Closing your account does not cancel it. We cancel a website subscription for you.
• Step 2. Open your profile on the website or in the app, choose Close my account, and confirm with your password.
• Step 3. Your account is closed immediately, you are signed out everywhere, and we send a confirmation to your email address. To deliver it, your address stays in our email queue for up to 30 days.

If you can no longer sign in, write to info@aaronsan.com from the email address of your account with the subject “Delete my account”. We confirm the request with you and close the account within 30 days.

What we delete: your account, email address, username, profile and profile picture, learning history, rewards (EXP, onigiri, coins, flames, streak freezes, stickers and shop items), pronunciation scores, study goals and plans, your activity with other members (follows, challenges, hearts and invitation links), your devices, and your email and notification settings. Your username, and any you used before, stays reserved with no link to you, so that no one else can take it. The record of the consent choices you made is not deleted with them: it is kept as section 11 describes.

What we keep: only the records listed in section 11, for the periods stated there.

You can also ask us to delete only part of your data, such as your profile picture or your pronunciation scores, without closing your account.

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13. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you have the right to:

• know what information we hold about you and get a copy of it
• correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete
• receive the information you gave us in a structured, commonly used format (portability)
• have your information deleted, or ask us to stop using it
• withdraw your consent at any time, for example to voice recordings or sharing your usage with Apple, without affecting what was done before
• object to certain uses of your information, such as optional emails and notifications, or ask us to limit them
• ask how an automated result, such as a score, a review schedule, or an automatic decision on a refund request, was produced, and have a person review it

Send your request to info@aaronsan.com from the address linked to your account. We may need to confirm your identity. We answer within 30 days, free of charge.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may file a complaint with the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the data protection authority of your country in the European Economic Area (in France, the CNIL), or the Information Commissioner's Office in the United Kingdom.

14. Legal bases (European Economic Area and United Kingdom)

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, we rely on the following legal bases:

• Performance of our contract with you: your account, study features, your member profile and the member features you use (following, challenges, hearts), purchases, withdrawals and refunds, and account, security and billing emails.
• Your consent: voice recordings sent for pronunciation scoring, sharing your usage with Apple for refund requests, access to your microphone, photos, and notifications, and any promotional message, which we send only if you have opted in.
• Our legitimate interests: securing the service, preventing fraud and abuse of the refund guarantee, fixing errors, and sending the emails and notifications about your use of Aaronsan described in section 9, which you can turn off at any time, always weighed against your rights.
• Legal obligations: accounting, tax, and responses to authorities.

15. Children

Aaronsan is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information about them.

A user under 16 needs the consent of a parent or guardian.

If you believe that a child has created an account without that consent, write to info@aaronsan.com and we will delete it.

16. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when Aaronsan or the law changes. When a change affects your rights or obligations, we email you at least 30 days before it takes effect, with the new or amended wording, the previous version, and the date it applies; you can close your account before that date, at no cost. Other changes take effect when they are published on this page. The date at the top of this page shows the latest version.

17. Contact

Manda SENC — 418, avenue des Pins Ouest, suite 40, Montréal (Québec) H2W 1S2, Canada

Person in charge of the protection of personal information: info@aaronsan.com

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