You Clever Kid is a reading app for children, made by D3V Services Limited, a company in New Zealand ("we", "us"). This policy explains what information the app collects, why, who helps us handle it, and the choices you have. It covers the You Clever Kid iPhone app, the server it talks to, and this website.
The short version: a grown up creates the account. We keep only what the app needs to work: your email, your child's first name, age and buddy, and their reading progress. The app listens only after your child taps the mic. Recordings are turned into text and then deleted. There are no ads, no analytics tools and no tracking.
1. What we collect
About the grown up
- Name, email address and password when you create an account. Your password is stored only as a secure hash; we cannot read it.
- A sign in token for your phone, so you stay signed in. On the phone it is stored encrypted.
About each child you add
- First name (or a nickname), so the buddy can greet and cheer them.
- Age. You choose an age from 3 to 12; we store it as a birth year and use it to pick a starting level, word the hints and listen kindly to young voices.
- Buddy choices: animal, favourite colour and voice.
- Region: New Zealand, Australia or the USA, which sets accent, spelling and money.
- Settings you choose: levels, word length, number range, session size, picture clues and the daily time limit.
- Progress: practice sessions, stars, stickers and levels.
- Attempts: for each item your child tries, the item, the text our speech provider heard (up to 250 characters), whether it was right, close or not yet, which hint was used, how long the recording was and how quickly they answered.
Things we do not collect
We do not collect your child's surname, photos, contacts, location, advertising identifiers or health information. The app has no advertising, no third party analytics, no crash reporting tools and no social features. Children cannot message anyone or share anything from the app.
On the phone only
Some settings stay on your phone and are never sent to us: sound and music switches, the chosen song, cached audio for words, and your child's best times.
Purchases
You buy the app through Apple. Apple handles payment and we do not receive your payment details. See Apple's privacy policy for how Apple handles your purchase.
2. Voice recordings
- The microphone only switches on when your child taps the mic button. Nothing is recorded before that tap.
- Each recording is short: it stops when your child goes quiet, and never runs longer than 5 seconds.
- The recording is sent securely to our server and deleted from the phone straight after it is sent.
- Our server passes it to our speech to text provider, ElevenLabs, which turns it into text. Our server deletes its copy as soon as the text comes back. We do not keep recordings.
- ElevenLabs processes the recording only to provide that text to us, as our service provider, under its own data processing and retention terms.
- We keep the text of what was heard with the attempt, so the buddy can say what it heard and so your reports make sense.
The microphone is used only as a way for your child to answer, in place of typing. We do not use recordings to identify your child, and we do not use them to train any artificial intelligence.
3. How we use information
- To run the app: show the right items, check answers, give hints, award stars and stickers, and move levels up.
- To speak to your child: the buddy says instructions, clues and praise out loud. Some praise lines include your child's first name (for example "You did it, Mia!"), so the first name is sent to our voice provider to make that audio, and the audio is stored on our server so it can be played again.
- To show you reports in the grown ups area.
- To keep the service secure, fix problems and answer your support requests.
We do not sell personal information, we do not use it for advertising, and we do not build profiles of children for any purpose other than their own reading progress inside the app.
We use Anthropic's Claude to help us write the word lists the app uses. That work is done by us in advance; no information about you or your child is sent to Anthropic.
4. Who helps us
We use a small number of service providers. They may only use information to provide their service to us.
| Provider | What they do | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Fly.io | Hosts our server and database in Sydney, Australia | Everything our server stores, listed in section 1 |
| ElevenLabs | Speech to text and the buddy's voice | Short recordings of your child reading; your child's first name inside some spoken praise lines |
| Apple | App Store, payment and app delivery | What Apple collects under its own policy; we do not send Apple your child's information |
We may also share information if the law requires it, to protect someone's safety, or as part of a sale or restructure of our business, in which case this policy would continue to apply.
5. Where it is stored
Our server and database are hosted by Fly.io in Sydney, Australia. ElevenLabs is based overseas and may process recordings and text outside New Zealand and Australia, including in the United States. When information leaves New Zealand or Australia we take reasonable steps so it is protected in a way that is comparable to New Zealand and Australian privacy law, including choosing providers with strong security and contract terms.
6. Children's privacy
You Clever Kid is made for children, so we hold ourselves to the rules that protect them:
- A parent or guardian sets it up. Only an adult may create an account and add a child. By adding a child you confirm you are their parent or guardian, or have their parent's permission, and you consent to us collecting the information in this policy so your child can use the app.
- We collect only what the app needs. A first name, an age, buddy choices and reading progress. We do not ask children for any other personal information.
- A parent gate protects settings, reports and sign out.
- No ads, no tracking, no outside links for children, and no way for children to share information publicly.
United States (COPPA)
For children under 13 in the United States, we follow the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The parent provides consent by creating the account and adding the child. A child's voice recording is used only to turn their spoken answer into text in place of typed input, and is deleted straight after. A parent can review the information we hold about their child, ask us to delete it, and refuse further collection, by deleting the child in the app or contacting us (see section 8).
New Zealand (Privacy Act 2020)
We handle personal information in line with the Information Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 2020, including taking particular care with information about children. You can ask to see or correct your information, and you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz if you are not happy with our response.
Australia (Privacy Act 1988)
We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles. You can ask to access or correct your information, and you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au if you are not happy with our response.
7. How long we keep it
- Recordings: deleted as soon as they have been turned into text, usually within seconds.
- Account, child and progress information: kept while your account is open, so your child's progress and reports carry on. Deleting a child removes their information straight away.
- Backups: our hosting takes daily snapshots that are kept for about five days, so deleted information may stay in a backup for up to that long before it is overwritten.
- Server logs: short technical logs (such as the time of a request and an error message) are kept only as long as needed to run and secure the service.
8. Deleting information
- Delete a child: in the app, open Grown ups, solve the sum, choose the child's settings, then tap Delete and confirm. This permanently removes that child, their practice sessions and every attempt from our server.
- Delete your whole account: in the app, open Grown ups, solve the sum, tap Delete account, type your password and tap Delete for good. This permanently removes your account, every child on it, their sessions, attempts, stars and stickers from our server straight away. You can also email us from the address on the account at support@youcleverkid.com and we will do it for you.
- Deleting the app from your phone removes what is stored on the phone, but does not delete your account on our server.
9. Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to tell you what information we hold about you or your child, give you a copy, correct it, or delete it. Email us and we will reply within 20 working days. We may need to check that the request comes from the account holder before we act on it.
10. Security
Information travels between the app and our server over encrypted connections. Passwords are hashed, the phone's sign in token is stored encrypted, and our server is accessible only to the people who run it. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and will tell you and the relevant regulator if a serious breach affects you, as the law requires.
11. This website
This website does not use cookies, analytics or advertising, and loads its fonts from our own server. Our web host may keep standard technical logs, such as IP addresses, to deliver and secure the site.
12. Changes and contact
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top. If a change affects how we use your child's information, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect, and ask for consent again where the law requires it.
D3V Services Limited, New Zealand
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