Privacy Policy
Effective October 31, 2026
Cantonese Garden is an app for learning spoken Cantonese. This policy explains what information the app collects, why, who it is shared with, and how to delete it. "We" and "us" mean the team behind Cantonese Garden. You can reach us at dev@faantung.com.
- Your voice never leaves your phone. Speech is recognised on the device and the recording is discarded afterwards.
- We collect only what is needed to run your account and save your progress.
- No ads, no analytics or tracking tools, and we never sell your information.
- You can delete your account and all of its data from inside the app at any time.
Your voice and the microphone
When you hold the speak button, the app records a short clip so it can check your pronunciation and tones. That check runs entirely on your phone, using speech models downloaded to the device. The audio is never uploaded, stored on our servers or shared with anyone, and neither is the text the app recognised from it. The microphone is used only while you are holding the speak button.
Information we collect
If you create an account
- Sign-in details. Your email address. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive your email address (or Apple's private relay address, if you choose to hide yours) and an account identifier, plus your name and profile picture link if that provider shares them. If you sign in with email, your password is stored only in hashed form.
- Sign in with Apple token. If you sign in with Apple, we keep a token Apple issues so that we can revoke the app's access to your Apple ID when you delete your account.
- Profile. The display name you choose, your avatar choices, and a friend invite code.
- Learning progress. Which phrases you have practised, their scores (pronunciation, tone and accuracy as numbers), your review schedule, streaks, in-app currency (jade and coins), items, garden layout, pets and app settings. A practice record holds the phrase you were practising and its scores, not what the app heard.
- Friends. The players you have added as friends.
If you play without an account
Your progress stays on your phone. Nothing about you is sent to our servers until you create an account.
Kept only on your phone
- Onboarding answers. How you heard about the app, your age range, your goals and how much time you want to practise each day. These stay on the device. The age range is used to hide mature content from people under 18.
- Reminders. Practice reminders are scheduled by your phone itself. We do not collect a push notification token.
What other players can see
If you have an account, your display name, avatar (or garden character), number of phrases mastered and jade can appear on leaderboards and in friends lists, which other players can see. Your email address is never shown to other players.
How we use information
- To create and secure your account and keep you signed in.
- To save your progress and sync it across your devices.
- To run leaderboards and friends.
- To answer you when you contact us.
We do not use your information for advertising, and we do not build profiles of you for any other purpose.
Who we share it with
We do not sell or rent your information. It is handled only by service providers that run the app for us, under their own privacy and security terms:
- Supabase hosts our sign-in system and database, where your account and progress are stored.
- Cloudflare serves the lesson audio and speech models the app downloads, and this website. Like any web server, it receives your device's IP address when you download a file. We do not use that to identify you.
- Apple and Google, only if you choose to sign in with them, and if you make a purchase through the App Store or Google Play. Purchases are handled by them; we never see your payment details.
We may also disclose information if the law requires it.
How long we keep it
We keep your account information for as long as your account exists. When you delete your account, your account and all of the data listed above are deleted from our database straight away. Copies in our database provider's routine backups are removed as those backups expire.
Deleting your account
In the app, go to Settings → Account → Delete account. Deletion is immediate and permanent. If you no longer have the app, see how to request deletion by email.
Your rights
You can ask us for a copy of your data, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, by emailing dev@faantung.com. Depending on where you live, laws such as the GDPR or the California Consumer Privacy Act may give you further rights, and you can also complain to your local data protection authority. We will respond within 30 days.
Children
Cantonese Garden is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.
Security
Information is sent over encrypted connections, and access to each person's data in our database is restricted to that person's own account. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top of this page. If a change significantly affects how we use your information, we will tell you in the app.
Contact
Questions about privacy: dev@faantung.com.