Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 26, 2026

Express French is a French course app for iPhone made by Guinea Pig SD. This page explains what data the app uses, where it is kept, what Apple and Google receive, and how you control it. We run no server for the app, and none of your data reaches us.

No account with us

Express French has no user accounts and no sign-in. The app never asks for your name or email address.

Your learning data: on your iPhone and in your iCloud

The app keeps your course progress and lesson attempts (including what you type and the text of your spoken answers), card reviews and their schedule, your placement result, any official exam results you enter, your goal (exam, target level, exam date), your error notebook, the words you add yourself, and your settings. Each record carries a random identifier for the app installation that created it, so copies from your devices can be merged.

This data is saved on your iPhone. When you are signed in to iCloud, the app also syncs it through Apple’s iCloud (CloudKit, your private database) to your other devices signed in to the same Apple Account. That database belongs to your iCloud account: we cannot see it. Apple stores it under its own privacy policy. When you are not signed in to iCloud, the data stays on your iPhone. You can see the sync status in the app under Tools › Settings › Sync and data.

Microphone and speech

Speaking exercises use the microphone only while you record an answer. Your speech is transcribed on your iPhone by Apple’s on-device speech recognition; the first time, iOS may download Apple’s French speech model for it. The recording itself stays in your iPhone’s memory: it is never saved to storage and never sent to us or to any server, and it is erased when you close the exercise. Only the text transcript is kept with your attempt, as described above. You can turn off microphone and speech recognition access at any time in iOS Settings › Express French.

AI features (Apple Intelligence)

Some features, such as example sentences for the words you add and feedback on your writing, use Apple’s on-device language model, which is part of Apple Intelligence. This processing happens on your iPhone; the app does not send what you write to us or to any other server for it. Without Apple Intelligence the course works fully; only these extras are unavailable.

Daily reminder

The daily study reminder is optional: the app asks for notification permission only after your first finished lesson. The reminder is scheduled on your iPhone, so no server is involved. Turn it off or change its time in Tools › Settings › Reminder, or turn off notifications in iOS Settings › Notifications › Express French.

Purchases (Apple)

Subscriptions are sold and processed by Apple through the App Store. We never receive your name, email address or payment card details. The app only checks with Apple whether your subscription is active. Apple’s privacy policy: apple.com/legal/privacy.

Ads in the free version (Google AdMob)

Without a subscription, the app shows ads from Google AdMob, a Google service, in two places: below the daily task list and on the summary after a card session. Lessons and exercises never show ads. Subscribers see no ads, and the app requests no ads for them. The ad software starts only when a free learner first reaches one of these two places, never at launch.

• Consent in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland. Before the first ad, Google’s User Messaging Platform checks with Google whether your consent is needed where you are. Where it is, Google’s consent form asks for your choice, and ads are requested only if your choice allows it. In these regions, ads rely on your consent (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a)). You can withdraw or change it at any time, as easily as you gave it, under Tools › Settings › Privacy choices.
• Tracking permission. When you first reach an ad, the app asks for Apple’s App Tracking Transparency permission, once. If you allow it, Google receives your device’s advertising identifier (IDFA) and may show ads based on it. If you don’t, the app asks Google for non-personalised ads only. You can change this at any time in iOS Settings › Privacy & Security › Tracking.
• What Google receives. To show and measure ads, Google receives information such as your IP address, device and app information, how you interact with the ads, and the advertising identifier when you allowed tracking. Non-personalised ads still use some of this, for example to limit how often an ad repeats and to prevent fraud. Google does not receive your lessons, answers, recordings or progress.

Google’s privacy policy: policies.google.com/privacy. How Google uses data from apps that use its services: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

Who receives your data

Only Apple and Google, each only for the purposes described above and under their own privacy policies, which protect your data at least as well as this policy does. We do not sell your data or share it with anyone else.

What Express French does not do

• No analytics and no crash-reporting service.
• No selling of your data.

Keeping and deleting your data

We hold no data about you, so there is nothing for us to keep or delete. Your learning data stays until you delete it: Tools › Settings › Reset all progress deletes it from your iPhone and, while iCloud sync is on, from iCloud. Deleting the app removes the copy on your iPhone, but the copy in your iCloud stays and comes back if you install the app again; use Reset all progress first if you want it gone. Google keeps ad data under its own policy, linked above.

Your rights

Every control is in the app and in iOS Settings, as described above. If you are in the EEA or the UK, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your data protection authority.

Contact

Questions about privacy: support@guineapigse.space