Privacy Policy

We keep data collection to the minimum needed to run the app:

• Account information. When you sign up we collect your email address (and, if you choose to sign in with a provider like Google, the basic profile information that provider shares). Authentication is handled by our identity provider, Clerk. We use this to create and secure your account.
• Voice recordings. Three parts of Bolo! record you: speaking practice, talking with Bolo, and taking a call from the teahouse grandma. In each case the recording itself leaves your device. It is not turned into text on your phone and then sent; the audio goes. Recording only happens while you are actively using one of those three features.
• What you say and type to Bolo. Your side of a conversation with Bolo, and any notes Bolo keeps about you so the conversation feels continuous.
• Learning progress. We store your lesson progress, pronunciation scores, streaks, badges, and similar activity data so we can track your progress and personalize your practice.

• To create your account and sign you in securely.
• To transcribe and score your pronunciation and return coaching feedback in real time.
• To let Bolo hold a conversation with you, and to speak its replies aloud.
• To write and re-read short notes about what you have told Bolo, so it does not ask you the same thing twice.
• To save your progress, streaks, and achievements across your devices.
• To operate, maintain, and improve the app's core learning features.
• Only if you choose to, to email you Bolo news, new languages and offers. This is off unless you tick the box when you sign up or turn it on in Account, and you can turn it off at any time.

Your voice goes to OpenAI. When you practise speaking, talk to Bolo, or take a call from the teahouse grandma, we send the recording to OpenAI, who convert it to text and help us score how close you were. In speaking practice the same recording is sent twice, because two passes give a more reliable score.

What you say and type goes to OpenAI. Your side of a conversation with Bolo is sent so that Bolo can reply.

Notes Bolo keeps about you. If you tell Bolo something worth remembering, we ask OpenAI to write a short note about it, and we store that note on our own servers, not theirs. To keep the conversation feeling continuous, those stored notes are sent back to OpenAI at the start of later conversations. So a note you gave us once travels again each time you talk. Writing the note and re-reading it are two separate journeys, and your conversation goes on both.

Bolo's replies, spoken aloud. We send text to ElevenLabs to be spoken aloud, in two places: the story narration, for every learner whatever language they are learning, and Bolo's spoken replies in Mandarin, Korean and Japanese. Your recording is never sent to ElevenLabs. Bolo's reply is written in response to you, so it can repeat or rephrase something you just said. Our other seven languages are spoken by OpenAI or by recordings our writers made.

We do not tell them who you are. No account identifier goes with any of this. Not your name, not your email address, not your user id, not any internal reference that could be traced back to your account. The companies processing your speech receive the speech and nothing that says whose it is. What travels with it is the content itself, so anything you choose to tell Bolo about yourself can travel inside a note even though your account never does.

We do not use your voice recordings to build voice profiles, and we do not sell or share your recordings with third parties for advertising or any other purpose.

Voice notes you bring in. If you import a voice note (for example one a grandparent sent you), we send its audio to our speech provider to turn it into text, then delete the audio in the same request; it is never stored. We keep the text, its translation and the suggested replies until you forget the note or delete your account.

We do not sell your personal information. We share data only with the service providers that make the app work, and only to the extent needed to provide the service:

• OpenAI — receives your voice recordings, your side of conversations with Bolo, and the stored notes described above. Also generates Bolo's spoken voice for the seven languages ElevenLabs does not cover.
• ElevenLabs — receives the text of Bolo's spoken replies in Mandarin, Korean and Japanese only. Never your recording.
• Clerk — authentication and account management (stores your email and login credentials).
• RevenueCat and Stripe — subscriptions and purchases, in the app and on the web respectively.
• Sentry — crash and error reports, so we can fix what breaks.
• PostHog — product analytics, so we can see which parts of the app get used.
• Resend — sends the emails we owe you, such as invitations.
• Cloudflare — stores backups of the phrase audio Bolo itself speaks, so that a bad recording of Bolo can be put back. No recording of you is stored there.

Recordings made through our invited voice contribution mode are retained as described in Data retention below.

We may also disclose information if required by law, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of our users and the service.

We only work with providers whose terms give your data protection at least equal to what this policy promises. What each one commits to, read from their own current terms on the date shown:

• OpenAI — data sent through their API is not used to train or improve their models. Requests may be retained for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring, and then deleted, unless longer retention is required by law. Read September 10, 2026 at their API data controls page.
• ElevenLabs — their published privacy policy states that it does not govern data processed on behalf of business customers such as us, which is covered by a separate data processing agreement instead. Rather than restate terms we cannot show you, here is what our own code guarantees: they receive text and never your recording, and only for Mandarin, Korean and Japanese. Their policy is at elevenlabs.io/privacy-policy.
• Clerk, RevenueCat, Stripe, Sentry, PostHog, Resend and Cloudflare — each processes data only on our instructions, under its own published privacy terms, and none of them receives your voice recordings or your conversations with Bolo. They handle account details, payments, crash reports and email.

If a provider changes its terms in a way that weakens this, we will change provider or change this page.

We keep your account information and learning progress for as long as your account is active. When you delete your account, we delete your associated personal data and learning progress.

Voice recordings. In normal use, your voice recordings are processed to score your pronunciation and are not retained after the scoring request completes.

Separately, we run an optional voice contribution mode used to improve BOLO's pronunciation scoring. This mode is clearly indicated on screen and is only available to invited contributors. Recordings made in contribution mode are retained, along with the phrase and language they belong to, and are used solely to evaluate and improve our scoring system. If a contributor re-records a phrase, the discarded take is deleted. Contributed recordings are not attached to an account: most contributors are family members who never sign in, so a recording carries only the name the contributor typed and the sitting it came from. That means deleting an account does not reach them. Contributors can ask us to remove their recordings at any time by contacting us and telling us the name they used.

Bolo! is friendly enough for younger learners, but it is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without appropriate consent. If you believe a child has provided us personal information, please contact us and we will remove it.

• Microphone control. The app only records when you tap the microphone to practice. You can revoke microphone access at any time in your device settings (recording features will stop working, but the rest of the app still functions).
• Access and deletion. You can delete your account yourself, from inside the app, at any time. See Deleting your account below for exactly where the button is and what it removes. For a copy of your data, use the contact form linked below.
• Marketing emails. Optional and off by default. If you opted in, you can stop them at any time with the switch in Account or the unsubscribe link in any of those emails. Account and security emails are not marketing and are not affected.

You can delete your Bolo! account yourself, from inside the app. You do not need to email us and you do not need to ask.

On the website: open Account & settings from the navigation, scroll to Delete account, choose Delete my account, then confirm with Delete forever.

In the mobile app: tap the settings icon on the Home screen to open Account settings, scroll to Delete account, tap it, then confirm with Delete.

Deleting your account does not cancel your subscription. Subscriptions are billed by Apple or Google, not by us, so cancel yours in the App Store or in Google Play first. If you delete your account without cancelling, the store keeps billing you and we have no way to stop it.

What we delete. Your sign-in identity goes first, so nobody can sign back in while the rest is being removed. Then:

• Everything you learned with: your practice attempts, XP, badges, streak and ability records, the phrases Bolo was tracking for you, your script tracing progress, zone and lesson test-outs, daily quizzes and game sessions.
• Your conversations with Bolo, including the notes Bolo kept about you between sessions.
• Your social records: friendships, invitations you sent, anyone you blocked, and any report you filed about a username.
• Your family plan. If you were a member, your seat is freed. If you owned the plan, the plan is dissolved and every seat on it is released.
• Your Cha wallet and everything it recorded.
• Messages you sent us through the contact form.
• Your push notification tokens, so the app can no longer reach your device.

What we do not delete, and why.

• Store receipts. Apple and Google hold your purchase records. We never had them, so we cannot remove them.
• Recordings you contributed as a speaker. These are not attached to an account, so account deletion cannot reach them. Ask us and we will remove them.
• Anonymous totals. Counts that no longer name anybody, such as how many people practised a phrase, stay in our aggregates.

It happens immediately and cannot be undone. There is no restore window. Encrypted backups may retain a copy for a short period before they expire, and we cannot retrieve your account from them.

If you cannot sign in and therefore cannot reach the button, use our contact form from the email address on the account and we will delete it for you.

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Significant changes will be communicated through the app or by email where appropriate.

If you have questions about this policy, or want to access or delete your data, reach us through our contact form.