Privacy & Safety

1. Who we are

My Fluent Reader ("My Fluent Reader", "we", "us", or "our") is a reading-fluency application for early readers, operated from New Jersey, USA. This Privacy & Safety Policy explains what information we collect through our website and apps (the "Service"), how we use and protect it, and the choices you have. By using the Service, you agree to this policy.

2. A note for parents & schools

My Fluent Reader is designed to be set up and supervised by an adult. When you create an account, you confirm you are at least 18 years old and are the parent or legal guardian of the child readers you add, or an authorized teacher or school official acting on their behalf. The grown-up who creates the account provides consent for the child's use and controls the child's information at all times.

For classroom use, a school or teacher may provide consent and act as the "school official" for the students they add, consistent with FERPA and COPPA. Schools remain responsible for obtaining any parental notice or consent required by their policies.

3. Information we collect

Grown-up account information

When a parent, guardian, or teacher registers, we collect a name and email address and a securely hashed password, and optionally a school name. We also note how you first came to our website — for example a search engine, one of our ads, another website, or typing our address — and the page you arrived on. Our own website keeps this in a cookie of ours (not a third party's) until you sign up; it then stays with your account, so we can see which ways of finding us work.

Reader (child) profile

For each child reader, the grown-up provides a first name or nickname, an age or grade, and optionally a school. We ask families not to enter a child's full name or other identifying details that aren't needed.

Reading activity

As a child practices, we collect audio recordings of the child reading aloud, the text they read, and the results we derive from each read — such as words-correct-per-minute, accuracy, expression, stars and progress, and words to practice.

Technical & usage information

We collect the limited technical and usage information needed to operate and secure the Service (for example, basic device information and app-activity needed to save progress and prevent abuse). Inside the app we use no third-party advertising and no cross-app tracking.

Advertising measurement on our website

We advertise My Fluent Reader to parents and teachers on Google. On the pages of our website written for them — such as our home page and articles, but not the app — we use Google Ads measurement to see which of our ads bring people to sign up. Google may set its own cookies on those pages and processes those visits under its own privacy policy. When a grown-up who came from one of our ads then creates an account, our server tells Google that the ad led to a sign-up: the ad click's ID and the time, never their name or email. We keep that click ID for no more than 90 days. Google's code never runs in the app or anywhere a child reads, and nothing about a child — their name, recordings or reading — is shared with Google for advertising. You can turn off personalized ads from Google at adssettings.google.com.

Payments

Paid subscriptions on our website are processed by Stripe, our payment processor. Stripe securely collects and handles your card details — we never receive or store your full payment card number. To set up and renew your subscription we process, through Stripe, your name, email, billing address, and the amount and status of your payments. Your billing address is used to calculate any applicable sales tax, which is shown before you confirm. Subscriptions auto-renew every 6 months until you cancel; you may cancel anytime and keep access through the end of the paid period.

4. How we use information

• To teach and assess reading, and to guide each child through stories at the right level.
• To show the grown-up their child's progress, and to let you replay, share, and download recordings.
• To operate, maintain, secure, and support the Service.
• To improve reading instruction using aggregated or de-identified information.
• To communicate with the account holder about the Service.

We do not use children's personal information for behavioral advertising, and we do not build advertising profiles.

5. Your child's voice recordings

Reading aloud is the heart of My Fluent Reader, so we keep recordings of your child reading for two reasons: to score their fluency, and so that you — the grown-up — can listen back, celebrate the progress, and share a proud moment with family.

You are always in control of these recordings. From your account you can play them, share them, download them, and delete any individual recording or an entire reader's recordings at any time. Recordings are kept in your account until you delete them or close the account. To turn speech into text and score it, recordings are processed by a speech-to-text provider (see "How information is shared"); we do not use your child's recordings to build advertising profiles or sell them to anyone.

Improving scoring, only if you say yes. A teacher or grown-up can correct the score of a read, and those corrections help us check how well our scoring agrees with people. We use a reader's recordings for this only when the grown-up who owns the reader has switched on “Help make reading scores more accurate” in their account. It is off unless you turn it on, and you can turn it off at any time; from then on, that account's recordings are not used. The same speech-to-text provider that scores reads processes them, in the United States. This never changes a score you can see.

6. AI features & content safety

My Fluent Reader uses artificial intelligence to model expressive reading, coach your child, score fluency, and summarize practice for the grown-up. Two safeguards apply: (1) the AI does not carry on open-ended chat with children, and (2) every line of text a child could see is checked against a kid-friendly safety filter before it is shown. AI processing is performed by our service providers (see below) under agreements that restrict how the data may be used.

7. How information is shared

We do not sell or rent personal information. We share information only in these limited ways:

• Service providers (sub-processors) who help us run the Service — including Google Cloud (United States regions) for speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and generative-AI processing; Stripe for payment processing and sales-tax calculation; Twilio for phone verification; and Brevo (France, storing in the European Union) for email — which receives the grown-up’s address only, never a child’s name or reading results; plus hosting and database providers in the United States. They may process information only to provide services to us, under their own privacy and security commitments.
• Legal reasons — if required by law, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of our users or the Service.
• Business transfers — if My Fluent Reader is involved in a merger or acquisition, information may transfer as part of that transaction, subject to this policy.

We do not allow our service providers to use children's information for their own purposes, and we do not integrate third-party advertising networks into the app. The one advertising tool we use — Google Ads measurement on our website's pages for parents and teachers — is described under "Advertising measurement on our website" above; its code never runs in the app or anywhere a child uses it.

8. Children's privacy (COPPA)

My Fluent Reader complies with the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Because a child's account is created and controlled by a grown-up:

• We obtain verifiable parental (or school) consent through the grown-up account before a child uses the Service.
• We collect only information that is reasonably necessary for a child to take part, and we do not require a child to disclose more than is needed.
• A parent or guardian can review their child's information, delete it, and refuse further collection at any time (see "Your choices & rights" and our Data & Account Deletion page).
• We do not condition a child's participation on collecting more information than is reasonably necessary.

9. Your choices & rights

As the account holder you can access, correct, export, or delete your readers' information from within the app, or by contacting us. Depending on where you live, you may also have rights under laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) or the EU/UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), including rights to access and delete personal information. We do not sell personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of in that respect. To exercise any right, use the in-app controls or email us and we will respond as required by law.

10. Data retention & deletion

We keep information for as long as the account is active or as needed to provide the Service. You can delete recordings, a reader profile, or the entire account at any time — see the Data & Account Deletion page. When you delete data or close an account, we remove the associated personal information from our active systems within 30 days, and from routine backups shortly thereafter, except where we must retain limited records to meet legal or financial obligations.

11. Security

We protect information with encryption in transit, access controls, and reputable cloud infrastructure. No method of storage or transmission is 100% secure, but we work to protect your information and to promptly address any issues.

12. Where data is stored

My Fluent Reader is operated from the United States. A child’s reading data — recordings, transcripts, scores and progress — is stored and processed in the United States. Our servers and database are in Virginia, speech recognition uses Google’s United States regional endpoint, and our AI processing runs in a United States region.

One exception, and it does not involve a child’s reading data. Email is sent through Brevo, a provider based in France, which stores email data in the European Union. For that reason our emails deliberately contain no child’s name and no reading results — they tell you a report is ready and link you to the app, where the data stays. What Brevo holds is the grown-up’s email address and the fact that a message was sent.

If you use the Service from another country, you consent to this processing.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date and, where appropriate, notify the account holder. Continued use of the Service after an update means you accept the revised policy.

14. Contact us

Questions about privacy, or a request about your data? Email us at [email protected] and we'll be glad to help.