Privacy policy.

Last updated · 18 May 2026

WordScope is built by Spark Labz Inc. ("we," "us," "our"). We think privacy policies should be readable, so here's the short version: we don't collect personal data, and we don't know who you are. Your learning data — what you've studied, how you rated each word, your streak — lives on your iPhone. The one thing we do collect is anonymous product analytics through PostHog, so we can tell how the app is being used in aggregate. That data is tied to a random ID, not to you. We ask for your first name during onboarding so the app can greet you, but we don't store it anywhere off your device — and we never ask for your email or any account.

The longer version follows. It takes about four minutes to read.

The short version

• WordScope stores your learning data on your device, using Apple's SwiftData. We can't read it.
• We collect anonymous product analytics through PostHog — events like "opened app," "completed daily session," "tapped Restore Purchases." These events are tagged with a random anonymous ID that we generate on the device. We do not link it to your name, your email, your Apple ID, or your device identifiers.
• We have no account system. No login. No email. No password.
• Subscription payments are handled entirely by Apple. We see only whether you're a paying user — not who you are, not what card you used.
• We do not use advertising SDKs, do not request your advertising identifier (IDFA), and do not sell or share data with brokers.

If that's all you wanted to know, you can stop here. The rest is detail.

What WordScope stores on your device

When you use WordScope, the app keeps the following information locally on your iPhone, inside the app's own private storage (Apple's SwiftData):

• Your responses to the initial placement assessment.
• The words you've seen and how you rated each one (the smiley-face ratings).
• Your spaced-repetition schedule — which words come back to you and when.
• Your streak, your calendar of daily activity, and your history of completed days.
• Your daily reminder time, if you set one.
• Your app preferences and onboarding state.

This learning data is yours. It stays on your device.

We — Spark Labz — cannot read this learning data. We have no "admin panel" where your activity shows up, because there is no server on our end that stores it.

Anonymous product analytics (PostHog)

To understand whether WordScope is working for the people who use it, we collect anonymous product analytics through a third-party service called PostHog (PostHog Inc.). We use this data to answer questions like: Are people finishing their first daily session? Does the streak feature actually keep people coming back? Is a particular screen confusing enough that everyone drops off there?

What we collect

PostHog records app events — for example:

• App opened / app backgrounded.
• Completed onboarding step.
• Started daily session, finished daily session.
• Rated a word — we record that a rating happened, along with an anonymous catalog identifier (a random UUID) for the word and the rating value. We do not send the word text, its definition, or any sentence from the app.
• Tapped a paywall, started a subscription, restored purchases, cancelled.
• Encountered an error or crash in a specific screen.

Each event may be accompanied by lightweight, non-identifying context such as the app version, the iOS major version, the device family (e.g., "iPhone"), the device locale and language, and a device-region country code (e.g., "US", "GB", "DE") read from your iOS region setting (Settings → General → Language & Region). The country code reflects how you've configured your device — it is not derived from your network address. We explicitly instruct PostHog not to perform its server-side IP-based geolocation enrichment, so events are not tagged with city, region, postal code, latitude, longitude, or any other location data derived from your network address. PostHog still uses the source IP to route the request, but it is not stored on the event or used to derive location for our project.

What identifies the events

Events are tagged with a random anonymous ID that the app generates on first launch and stores on the device. We do not link this ID to:

• your name,
• your email address,
• your Apple ID,
• your phone number,
• your IDFA / advertising identifier (we don't request it),
• your IDFV / vendor identifier,
• your precise location,
• your device's serial number, IMEI, or MAC address.

If you reset the app, reinstall it, or use it on a new device, you get a new anonymous ID — there is no way for us to connect the old activity to the new activity. The ID is just a number; it doesn't reach back to you.

What we do NOT send to analytics

• The actual word text, definitions, or sentences shown to you. (We do send an anonymous catalog UUID for the word — a random identifier from our shared word catalog, the same for every user — but never the word itself.)
• Anything you type or speak into the app.
• The content of your local learning data (your scheduling, your responses, your calendar).
• Any free-text from you (we don't collect free-text).

PostHog is a product-analytics tool, not a learner-data store. The point is to count behavior, not to learn about you.

Where the data lives

We use PostHog's hosted infrastructure. PostHog processes the events on our behalf as a data processor (under GDPR terminology) or service provider (under CCPA terminology). PostHog's own privacy practices apply to that processing — see https://posthog.com/privacy for details.

Stopping collection

WordScope does not currently include an in-app toggle to disable analytics. Because no analytics event identifies you, the events cannot be tied back to you as a person. If you do not want any further events sent from your device, uninstalling the app stops collection immediately. If you have a specific concern, email us (see "Contact" below) and we'll help.

Notifications

If you turn on the daily reminder, WordScope asks iOS for permission to send you a local notification at the time you pick. That notification is scheduled locally on your device. We don't send it. There is no push server. There is no list of users-to-be-reminded sitting on any computer we own.

You can turn notifications off at any time in iOS Settings → Notifications → WordScope, or inside the app.

Purchases and subscriptions

WordScope offers a few paid options (monthly, yearly, lifetime). All purchases go through Apple's StoreKit and the App Store. That means:

• Apple handles your payment. We never see your card number, your name, your billing address, your Apple ID email, or any other identifying information.
• We receive only an entitlement — a signed receipt from Apple that says, in effect, "this device has an active subscription" or "this device has the lifetime unlock." That's it.
• The entitlement check happens on your device. It's not sent to us.

We do record, as an anonymous PostHog event, that a purchase or restore took place. That event carries the anonymous ID — not your Apple ID, payment information, or any identifier Apple gives us.

If you want to know exactly what Apple collects when you make a purchase, see Apple's privacy policy: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/

What we don't do

To be unambiguous, here is what WordScope does not do:

• We do not use advertising SDKs, and we do not request your IDFA (advertising identifier). We do not show ads.
• We do not use Facebook SDK, Google SDK, or any social-login SDK.
• We do not embed any third-party tracking pixels, beacons, or fingerprinting techniques.
• We do not buy, sell, rent, or trade user data.
• We do not have a "data broker" relationship with anyone.
• We do not attempt to identify you, deanonymize the analytics events, or combine them with data from any third party.

If we ever add anything in any of these categories, we will update this policy and let you know inside the app before we ship the change. See "Changes to this policy" at the bottom.

What Apple may collect

Apple operates the App Store and StoreKit. When you download WordScope and when you subscribe, Apple collects some information as part of running its own platform — for example, your Apple ID, your device, your purchase history. We don't control that, and we don't see most of it.

Apple also offers developers an aggregated, anonymized analytics dashboard called App Store Connect Analytics, which can include things like number of downloads, crash counts, and impressions on the App Store listing. These reports are aggregated by Apple and do not identify individual users. We may look at these reports alongside our PostHog data to understand whether the app is working for people.

If you want to see what Apple collects, read Apple's privacy policy: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/

Third parties we use

The third parties that process any data on our behalf are:

• Apple Inc. — App Store distribution, payments, and delivery of local notifications.
• PostHog Inc. — anonymous product analytics, as described above. PostHog acts as our data processor / service provider.

That's the full list. We will update it here before adding any other third party that processes data from the app.

Children

WordScope is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. Our analytics are anonymous and not tied to any identity we collect, and we do not ask for age, name, or email.

If you are a parent and you believe your child is using WordScope, uninstalling the app stops any further events from being sent and removes all of the child's learning data from the device.

Your rights (GDPR, CCPA, and similar laws)

Privacy laws like the EU GDPR, the UK GDPR, and California's CCPA / CPRA give you rights over personal data that companies hold about you. We've designed WordScope so that most of these rights are satisfied by the architecture of the app itself:

• Right to know / right to access. The personal-data categories we process are limited to (a) the anonymous random ID generated on your device, (b) the events tagged with that ID, and (c) the non-identifying context described in the analytics section (app version, iOS major version, device family, locale, and a device-region country code read from your iOS settings). We do not collect contact data, account data, IP-derived location (we instruct PostHog to skip IP-based geolocation), city/region/postal-code/latitude/longitude, biometric data, sensitive categories, or inferences about your identity. Your actual learning data is stored on your device, and you can see it in the app at any time.
• Right to deletion / right to erasure. You can delete all of your local learning data by tapping Reset in the app's settings, or by uninstalling WordScope. To request deletion of the anonymous analytics events tied to your device's anonymous ID, email us at the address below. Because the ID is anonymous and not linked to your real identity, you'll need to include the anonymous ID shown in the app (see About → Diagnostics) so we can identify the right records.
• Right to correct. Because we don't store identity data, there is nothing to correct on our end. You can correct your local learning data in the app.
• Right to portability. Your learning data is local and tied to the app's internal format; we don't currently offer a formal export file, but may add one in a future version. The analytics events are not associated with you as a person and are not exportable in a personally-meaningful form.
• Right to opt out of sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. There is nothing to opt out of in that sense.
• Right to object (GDPR). Where we rely on legitimate interests to process anonymous analytics, you have the right to object. Email us and we will stop processing analytics events tied to your device's anonymous ID.
• Right to limit use of sensitive personal information. We do not collect sensitive personal information.
• Right to non-discrimination. Exercising any privacy right will not affect your access to the app.
• Right to lodge a complaint (EEA / UK). If you're in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom and you believe we've mishandled your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local Data Protection Authority. We'd appreciate the chance to address it first — please email us.

Legal bases (GDPR). Where the GDPR applies, we rely on the following lawful bases for processing:

• Performance of a contract — to provide the WordScope app itself and to process your in-app purchase entitlements (Article 6(1)(b)).
• Legitimate interests — to operate, secure, and improve the app via anonymous product analytics (Article 6(1)(f)). Because the analytics ID is not linked to your identity, the impact on your privacy is minimal. You can object to this processing at any time by emailing us.
• Consent — where we ask you to consent to something specifically (for example, iOS's standard permission prompt for local notifications) (Article 6(1)(a)).

International transfers. PostHog and Apple may process data outside your country, including in the United States. Where required, we and our processors rely on appropriate transfer mechanisms (such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses) to protect your data.

Data retention. Anonymous analytics events are retained for up to 24 months and then deleted or aggregated. If you request deletion by email, we will remove or anonymize the events associated with your device's anonymous ID within 30 days.

If you have a question about your rights and you're not sure how to exercise them given the above, email us (see "Contact" below) and we'll help.

Security

Your learning data is stored inside WordScope's private app container on iOS, which iOS protects from other apps via the standard iOS sandbox. If you've set a passcode or Face ID on your device, that protection extends to WordScope's data at rest.

Analytics events are sent to PostHog over TLS and stored under PostHog's security practices (see https://posthog.com/handbook/engineering/security). Because the events do not contain your name, contact info, learning content, or any other identifier we collect from you, the consequences of any single event being intercepted or accessed without authorization are limited by design.

We don't run our own servers for learner data, so there is no learner-data server for us to harden, monitor, or have breached.

International users

WordScope is available wherever Apple distributes it. If you're in the EU, the EEA, the UK, Switzerland, California, or anywhere else with a privacy law, the model described above applies to you: your learning data is on your device, and the only data we process about you is anonymous product analytics that aren't linked to your identity.

Changes to this policy

If we make a material change to this Privacy Policy — for example, if we start collecting a new category of data, add a new third-party processor, or change how analytics work — we will:

1. Update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page.
2. Show you an in-app notice the next time you open WordScope.
3. Give you a reasonable chance to read the new policy before the change takes effect.

Minor wording fixes (typos, clarifications) may be made without an in-app notice, but we'll still bump the date.

See also: Terms of Service.