Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 24, 2026

Yapville is a game for learning a language by talking. You move to a little fictional town and chat, out loud, with the people who live there. To make that work, some of what you say has to travel to our servers and to a few carefully chosen companies. This page explains exactly what, why, and what you can do about it, in words we hope anyone can follow.

This policy covers the Yapville apps for iPhone and Android and the web version at yapville.palmstudio.app. It is published by PALMS STUDIO LLC ("we", "us"). If anything here is unclear, write to us at yapville@palmstudio.app.

The short version

Your voice is sent to our server while you talk, turned into text, and then let go. We do not keep recordings of your voice.
The characters are AI. What you say to them in a conversation is sent to an AI provider so they can answer you.
Your progress (your level, words, phrasebook and what the neighbours remember about you) is saved on your device and backed up to our cloud database under your account.
We ask your age only to check that you are 13 or older. We keep that answer ("13 or older"), never your age or birthday.
No ads. No tracking. No analytics or advertising SDKs. We never sell your data.
We do not use your location, contacts, photos or camera.
You can ask us for a copy of your data or to delete everything at any time.

Who is responsible for your data

PALMS STUDIO LLC makes Yapville and is responsible for (the "controller" of) the personal data described here. You can reach us at yapville@palmstudio.app; please add the profile code from Settings › About so we can find your account without asking for anything else.

What we collect and why

Things you tell us when you start

Your age check. Before anything else, Yapville asks how old you are. If you are 13 or older, we save only that you are at or above that line. Your actual age is never saved. If you are younger, the app kindly stops, nothing leaves your device, and your device remembers the answer so the question cannot simply be answered again.
Your name, the one you want the characters to call you. It can be a nickname.
Your languages: the language you speak best, the language on your screen, the language you are learning and its accent (for example, American or British English).
Your answers to a few questions: why you are learning (work, travel, study or family), the time of day you plan to talk, how much help you want during conversations, and your rough level or the result of the one-minute placement test.
Your character: the look you choose for yourself (skin tone, hair, clothes and so on). Your portrait in the app is drawn from this character; it is never a photo.

We use these to run the game for you: to greet you by name, to talk at your level, and to show the screens in your language.

Your voice and your conversations

While you talk, the sound from your microphone is streamed to our server and on to our speech recognition provider, which turns it into text. This only happens while you are talking in a conversation, from the moment you press the microphone button until you let go, or when you record a short answer for the night review or the placement test.
The text of the conversation (what you said and what the character said) is sent to our AI provider so the character can reply, and again at the end so the app can prepare your recap: gentle corrections, useful phrases, what the character will remember, and what you discovered about them.
The character's replies are sent as text to our voice provider, which turns them into speech.
The microphone test in Settings runs entirely on your device. Nothing is recorded or sent.

See Your voice below for what happens to the audio afterwards.

Your progress

Yapville saves your game so you can pick up where you left off: your level in each language, the words you have met and used, your phrasebook and review schedule, what each neighbour remembers about you (a few short notes and a summary written after each conversation), your neighbours' notebook, your journal, simple measures of your practice (such as how long you spoke, how many words you used and on which days you talked), your in-game money, the kitchen and the house as you left them, your train ticket, and your settings.

The save is kept on your device and backed up to our cloud database under your account, so it survives a new phone and works on more than one device. Some settings (like graphics quality) stay on your device only. We use your progress only to run the game and show it back to you; there are no public profiles, leaderboards or scores shared with other people.

Your account

Signing in. Before you come into the town, Yapville asks you to sign in, so your progress belongs to you and survives a new phone. There are three ways, and which ones you see depends on your device: an email address and a password, Sign in with Apple, or Sign in with Google. We receive an account identifier from whichever you choose, and with Apple or Google your name and email address if you allow it — with Apple you may keep your real address hidden behind a relay address. We use them only to sign you in, to keep your progress safe across devices, and to write to you about your account if we ever need to.
Before you sign in. From the moment you open the app, your device holds an anonymous account: a random ID with no name, email or password. It is what holds the age answer and the first few screens together before you have an account of your own. When you sign in, your progress moves to your account.
Recovery codes. If you create a save recovery code, we store only a scrambled (hashed) version of it with your account ID, so the code can bring your progress to another device. We cannot read your code back.

Your daily reminder

If you turn on the reminder, your device gives us a push notification address (a token from Apple, Google or your browser's push service). We store it with your time zone, your language, the time you chose and a record of whether today's reminder has gone out, so that we send you at most one reminder a day. To decide which neighbours to mention, the reminder service may look at your saved progress. You can turn the reminder off in the app or in your device settings at any time.

Problem reports and emails

When you send a problem report from Settings › Support, it includes what you write, and, as the app shows you before you send, the app and content versions, your device type and screen size, your device and app languages, and your profile code. The lines of your last conversation are included only if you tick that box. If you email us, we receive your email address and whatever you write. We use these only to help you and to fix problems.

Technical data

Like any online service, our servers and hosting providers see technical information when your device connects: your IP address, the app version, and the time of each request. We use it to deliver the service, to limit abuse (for example, how many conversations one account can start in a day), and to find and fix errors. Server logs are kept for a short time; see How long we keep data.

What we do not collect

No advertising, and no advertising or analytics SDKs in the app.
No tracking across other companies' apps or websites.
No precise or approximate location. We use your device's time zone so the town's clock matches yours.
No contacts, photos, camera, or files from your device.
No payment information: Yapville has no purchases today.
No voiceprints: your voice is used only to understand what you said, never to identify you.

Your voice

We know a microphone is a big thing to trust an app with, so here is the whole story.

The microphone is used only when you choose to talk: from when you press the button in a conversation until you let go, and when you record an answer in the night review or the placement test.
Your audio goes over an encrypted connection to our voice server and on to Deepgram, our speech recognition provider, which returns the text.
We do not save recordings of your voice. Our server does not write your audio to disk or to our database.
So you can hear yourself in the recap, the app keeps your last few turns in your device's memory while the conversation screen is open. They are not uploaded again and are gone when you close it.
The text of what you said is used as described above, and parts of it may end up in your save, for example as a phrase in your phrasebook or a note a character remembers.
If our speech service is not available, the app may use your device's or browser's own speech recognition instead. That is provided by the maker of your device or browser (such as Apple or Google), under their privacy terms.

The AI in Yapville

The people of the town are fictional characters whose words are written in the moment by an AI model (Claude, made by Anthropic). They are not real people and nobody at Yapville reads along live. Because they are AI, they can misunderstand, get facts wrong, or say something odd; please do not rely on them for advice about health, money, law or anything important.

We do not use your conversations to train AI models, and Anthropic does not use data sent through its business API to train its models. The AI also helps with word notes, translations and your recap. The level estimate from the placement test and your conversations only adjusts how the characters speak to you; it has no legal or similar effect on you.

How we use your data and our legal bases

We use your data only for these purposes:

To provide Yapville (conversations, recaps, saving and syncing your progress, your account, recovery codes). Legal basis: performing our contract with you (our Terms of Use).
To send your daily reminder, only if you turn it on. Legal basis: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
To help you when you contact us or send a report. Legal basis: our contract with you and our legitimate interest in fixing problems.
To keep Yapville safe and working (rate limits, preventing abuse, security, error logs). Legal basis: our legitimate interest in protecting the service and its users.
To meet legal obligations, such as answering a lawful request from an authority. Legal basis: legal obligation.

We do not sell your personal data, we do not "share" it for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we do not use it for advertising of any kind.

Who we share it with

We use a small number of service providers who process data for us, under contracts that require them to protect it and use it only to provide their service to us:

Google Cloud and Firebase (Google LLC): runs our voice server (Cloud Run), our database (Firestore) and accounts (Firebase Authentication). Data: everything our server handles, including your save, account ID, reminder settings, problem reports and server logs. Our database and voice server run in the European Union (Frankfurt); Firebase Authentication is a global service.
Anthropic (Anthropic, PBC, United States): the AI model behind the characters, recaps, word notes and translations. Data: conversation text, and the parts of your profile and progress a character needs (such as your name, level and what they remember about you).
Deepgram (Deepgram, Inc., United States): speech recognition. Data: your voice audio while you talk, and the language setting.
ElevenLabs (Eleven Labs, Inc., United States): the characters' voices. Data: the text of the characters' lines, which may include your name.
Vercel (Vercel Inc., United States): hosts the Yapville website and web app. Data: technical data such as IP address when you load the site.
Push notification services (Apple, Google or your browser's provider): deliver your reminder, if you turn it on.
Apple and Google sign-in, once available: to sign you in, as described above.

Our providers may keep data for a limited time for security and abuse prevention, as their business terms allow. We may also disclose data if the law requires it, to protect the safety of our users or others, or as part of a merger or sale of our business, in which case this policy will continue to protect your data.

International transfers

We are based in the United States and our providers work in several countries, so your data may be processed outside the country where you live, including in the United States. When we transfer personal data from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland or Turkey, we use recognised safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (with the UK Addendum where needed) or our providers' certifications under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and for Turkey the standard contracts required by Turkish law.

How long we keep data

Your save and account: for as long as you have your account. When you delete your account, they are deleted as described below.
Accounts nobody uses: if an account has not been used for 24 months, we may delete it and its save.
Voice audio: not kept by us. It is processed to produce text and then discarded.
Conversation text: not stored by our server beyond the conversation, except the parts saved in your progress (phrases, what characters remember, your recap) and conversation lines you choose to include in a problem report.
Reminder data: until you turn the reminder off, delete your account, or the push address stops working.
Recovery codes: until you make a new code (the old one is deleted) or delete your account.
Problem reports: up to 24 months, then deleted.
Emails to support: as long as needed to help you, and no longer than 24 months after the conversation ends.
Server logs: about 30 days.
Data on your device: until you delete it, reset the app or uninstall it.

Keeping it safe

Everything travels over encrypted connections. Our database only lets your own account read and write your save; reminder data, reports and recovery codes can only be reached by our server. Requests to our server must carry a valid sign-in token, and every account has usage limits. No system is perfectly secure, but we work hard to protect your data, and if a breach affects you we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

Your rights and choices

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

tell you what personal data we hold about you and give you a copy, in a portable format;
correct it;
delete it;
stop or limit some uses of it, or object to them;
withdraw consent you have given (for example, turn off the reminder).

In the app you can change your name, languages and character, turn the reminder off, and stop using the microphone at any time. For anything else, email yapville@palmstudio.app with your profile code from Settings › About. We may need to confirm the request comes from the account holder, for example by asking you to send the code shown in your app. We will answer within one month (or sooner where the law requires), free of charge. You also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account and all your data at any time:

In the app: Settings › Account › Delete my account (arriving together with sign-in).
By email: write to yapville@palmstudio.app from any address with your profile code from Settings › About and the words "delete my account". You do not need to explain why.

When we delete your account, we delete your saved progress in our database, your account ID and sign-in details, your reminder subscriptions, your recovery code and the problem reports linked to your account, within 30 days. The copy on your device is removed when you reset or uninstall the app. Data that our providers hold briefly for security expires on their own schedules. We may keep a minimal record that a deletion was requested, if the law requires it.

Children and teens

Yapville is for people aged 13 and over. It is not directed to children under 13, and the age check at the start stops anyone who says they are younger before any data leaves their device. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has used Yapville, write to yapville@palmstudio.app and we will delete their data.

If you are under the age at which you can agree to this on your own where you live (in some countries that is 14, 15 or 16), please use Yapville with the permission of a parent or guardian. Parents and guardians can contact us about their teen's data at any time.

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the UK GDPR and the Swiss data protection law give you the rights listed above: access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, objection, and withdrawal of consent, plus the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, for example in the country where you live or work. Our legal bases are listed in How we use your data. We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects.

If you live in California or another US state with a privacy law

This section is our notice under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA/CPRA) and similar state laws.

Categories we collect: identifiers (account ID, IP address, push token, and email once sign-in is available); audio information (your voice while you talk, not kept); internet or other electronic activity (how you use the app, such as conversations and practice measures); inferences (your estimated language level); and the content of your conversations and reports. Sources: you, your device, and our providers acting for us.
Purposes: those listed in How we use your data.
Selling and sharing: we do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we have not done so in the past 12 months. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16.
Sensitive personal information: we do not use or disclose it for any purpose beyond providing the service.
Your rights: to know and access, to delete, to correct, to opt out of sale or sharing (we do neither), to limit the use of sensitive personal information, and not to be treated differently for using these rights. You can use them yourself or through an authorised agent by emailing yapville@palmstudio.app. We will confirm your request within 10 days and respond within 45 days.
Retention: see How long we keep data.

If you live in Turkey (KVKK)

Under the Turkish Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (KVKK), PALMS STUDIO LLC is the data controller. We process your personal data for the purposes in How we use your data, based on the legal grounds in Article 5 of KVKK: that processing is necessary for entering into or performing our contract with you, for our legitimate interests without harming your fundamental rights, to comply with legal obligations, and your explicit consent where it is required (for example, for the daily reminder). Your data is transferred abroad to the providers listed in Who we share it with under the safeguards in Article 9 of KVKK. Under Article 11 you have the right to learn whether your data is processed, request information, learn the purpose and whether it is used for that purpose, know the third parties it is transferred to at home or abroad, request correction or deletion, request that third parties are notified, object to results arising solely from automated analysis, and claim compensation for damage caused by unlawful processing. You can send requests to yapville@palmstudio.app; we will answer within 30 days at the latest.

Other countries

Wherever you live, if your local law (for example in Brazil, India, Japan or South Korea) gives you further rights over your personal data, we will honour them. Write to yapville@palmstudio.app.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If a change is significant, for example a new kind of data or a new provider that sees your conversations, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.

Contact

PALMS STUDIO LLC
Email: yapville@palmstudio.app

Translations of this policy are provided for your convenience. If a translation and the English version differ, the English version prevails.