Privacy Policy
This policy explains what the Ritora app and the website ritora.io do with your personal data. We have tried to write it plainly and to list everything — including what we send to other companies to make the app work.
1. Who is responsible
The controller of your data is Denys Solonyna, sole proprietor, the developer of Ritora (“we”, “us”). For anything about your data, write to support@ritora.io.
2. What we collect
Your account
- From Sign in with Apple: an account identifier, your email address (your real one, or Apple’s private relay address if you choose to hide it), and your name if you share it.
- From Google sign-in: an account identifier, your email address, name and profile picture.
- Your profile: the language you speak and the language you learn, your level, time zone, the reminder time, an optional gender (used so the lessons address you correctly), and the public name you choose.
What you do in the app
- Plans: the goal you describe (for example, “a doctor’s appointment in Berlin on the 14th”), your answers to the questions we ask while building the plan, and the facts about yourself you tell us there — for example your job, education, family or where you live. You decide what to tell; all of it is optional.
- Lessons and conversations: your answers in exercises and the text of your conversations with the AI partner (what you said, as recognised text, and what the partner said).
- Words and progress: your word sets, the words you add, your review history, progress and streak, topics you ask Ritora to make sets about, and words you search for.
- Sharing and leaderboard: the sets you share by code and who joined them; your points and place on the leaderboard.
- Subscription: the status of your Premium subscription and the purchase records Apple sends us (product, dates, renewal state, transaction identifiers). We never receive your card details.
Technical data
- Notifications: your device’s push token, its language and time zone, whether notifications are on, and when you open the app (so a reminder comes at a time you usually study).
- App diagnostics: the app version, iPhone model and iOS version, and error reports from the app (the screen, the error and a stack trace, with email addresses and keys removed).
- Server logs: each request the app makes to our server — address, time, result, the IP address and headers, and the request and response content — and each request our server makes to the providers listed below. We use these logs to find and fix problems and to protect the service.
- On your iPhone: the app keeps your words and progress in a local database and your sign-in token in the iOS Keychain, so the app opens quickly and reviews work offline. They are removed when you delete the app.
To use Ritora you need an account — the sign-in identifier and email address above; without them the app cannot keep your plans and words. Everything else you tell us is optional. We do not use advertising, analytics or tracking tools, and we do not sell your data.
3. Your voice and the microphone
- Ritora uses the microphone only when you speak an answer, say a word aloud, dictate a goal or topic, or talk with your conversation partner — and only after you allow it in iOS.
- Speech recognition (turning your answer into text so it can be checked) is done by Apple’s speech recognition. For most languages it runs on your iPhone; for Polish and Romanian, and when you dictate a topic for a new word set, Apple may process the audio on its servers.
- Voice conversations (Premium): in a spoken conversation with the AI partner, your voice is streamed directly from your iPhone to OpenAI (which therefore also sees your IP address); OpenAI listens and answers in real time and converts your speech into text.
- We do not record or store your voice. What we keep is the recognised text of what you said.
4. Why we use it, and on what legal basis
| Purpose | Legal basis (GDPR) |
|---|---|
| Your account, building your plans and lessons, the conversation partner, word sets, progress, sharing, Premium | Performing our contract with you (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Showing you on the leaderboard of your language | Our legitimate interest in a shared rating; you can hide yourself at any time (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Notifications and reminders | Your consent, given in iOS and in the app; you can withdraw it at any time (Art. 6(1)(a)) |
| Microphone and speech recognition | Performing the contract; access is by your permission in iOS |
| Server logs, error reports, preventing abuse and keeping the service secure | Our legitimate interest in a working and safe service (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Keeping purchase records | Performing the contract and our legal obligations (Art. 6(1)(b), (c)) |
The facts you tell us about yourself may, depending on what you choose to share, reveal sensitive information — for example about your health, if your plan is a doctor’s visit. We process such information only because you entered it for this purpose, on the basis of your explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a)), and only to make your lessons about your situation. Share only what you are comfortable with. You can withdraw consent by changing those facts in the plan (“About you”) or by deleting your account; withdrawal does not affect what was done before it.
No decision with legal or similarly significant effects on you is made by automated means. AI checks your answers and builds your lessons, and the app times reminders by when you usually study — this only shapes your learning.
5. Who else processes your data
To run Ritora we use these providers. Each receives only what its job needs:
| Provider | What for | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI (USA) | Builds plans, lessons, explanations and word sets; checks answers; plays the conversation partner; voice conversations | Your goal, answers, the facts you told us, your name and gender as used in lessons, the conversation text, topics and words; in a voice conversation — your voice |
| ElevenLabs (USA) | Voices the lesson lines and words | The text to be spoken; lesson lines are written around your situation and can contain your name or details you told us |
| DeepL (Germany) | The instant translation hint in word search | The word or phrase you type in search |
| Pexels (Germany) | Photos for lessons and words | Search terms from our server; your iPhone loads some photos directly from Pexels, which then sees your IP address |
| Apple (USA) | Sign in with Apple, push notifications, App Store purchases, speech recognition | What each of these services needs: sign-in tokens, the push token and message, purchase records, audio as described above |
| Google (USA) | Google sign-in; the mailbox where letters to support@ritora.io arrive (Gmail) | For sign-in we only verify the token Google issues to the app; your support letters are stored in that mailbox |
| Hetzner Online (Germany) | Hosts our server, database and backups in Falkenstein, Germany | All the data above, stored on our server |
| Cloudflare (USA) | DNS for ritora.io and forwarding of email sent to support@ritora.io | Emails you send to support@ritora.io pass through it |
These providers process the data to provide their service to us. Some of them are in the United States, so your data may be processed there; for such transfers we rely on the safeguards these providers offer their business customers (the EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework). OpenAI may keep data sent through its API for a limited period to monitor abuse, under its API terms.
Other learners see: on the leaderboard of your language — your public name, points and streak (until you choose a name, the first word of the name from your Apple or Google account is shown; you are on the leaderboard unless you hide yourself in Profile → “Show me on the leaderboard”); and your name on a word set you share by code.
6. How long we keep it
- Your account and everything in it — until you delete the account.
- Server logs, including our requests to the providers — 30 days, then deleted automatically. Detailed error diagnostics — 48 hours; records of failed background tasks — 30 days. An error report from the app — 14 days after the error last occurred.
- Backups — the server is backed up nightly and each backup is kept for 14 days. Before each server update a safety copy of the database is made; these are kept for 30 days, and the most recent one until a newer one replaces it.
- The notification feed in the app — 30 days.
7. Deleting your account
In the app: Profile → Delete account. This erases, straight away, your account and profile, plans and everything in them (goals, answers, facts about you, lessons, conversations, images made for your plan), your word sets, words, reviews and progress, your leaderboard entries, push tokens and subscription records. If you signed in with Apple, we also ask Apple to revoke Ritora’s access to your Apple ID. Sets you shared by code are removed for the people you shared them with; words they already learned stay in their accounts.
What remains after deletion:
- the server-log entries of your requests, with their content and headers erased, until they expire (30 days);
- our records of requests to the providers — these contain what was sent (for example your goal or facts) but no link to your account — until they expire (30 days); detailed error diagnostics until they expire (48 hours);
- voiced lesson lines — their text and audio are kept in a shared library of recordings that other lessons reuse, and a line can contain your name or a detail you told us; if you want these removed, write to us;
- usage and cost counts and error reports, with your account removed from them; the purchase and Sign in with Apple notices Apple sent us, as received; and an anonymous line counting that an account was deleted;
- copies in nightly backups, for up to 14 days, and in the safety copies made before server updates, for up to 30 days (the most recent one until it is replaced).
Deleting your account does not cancel an App Store subscription — cancel it in iOS Settings.
8. Your rights
You have the right to access your data, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict its use, to receive it in a portable form, and to withdraw consent at any time without affecting what was done before. You also have the right to object at any time to processing based on our legitimate interest (the leaderboard, logs and security). Most of this you can do in the app (edit your profile, turn notifications off, delete the account). For anything else, write to support@ritora.io — we answer within a month at the latest. You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority, in particular in the country where you live.
9. Children
Ritora is not intended for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child has given us data, write to us and we will delete it.
10. This website
ritora.io sets no cookies, runs no scripts and loads nothing from other sites. Our server records each visit (IP address, page, time, browser) in its technical log; old entries are removed as the log rotates by size, so they are kept only briefly. We use it only to keep the site working and safe.
11. Security
Data travels encrypted (HTTPS). The server is reachable from the internet only over HTTPS; its database and administration are closed to the outside. Your sign-in token on the iPhone is kept in the iOS Keychain.
12. Changes to this policy
When we change this policy, we update the date at the top. Before a significant change takes effect, we will let you know by email to the address of your account.
13. Contact
Denys Solonyna, sole proprietor — support@ritora.io.