Privacy Policy

The IPAtics operator ("we", "us", "our") is the data controller responsible for your personal data under GDPR Article 4(7). The operator’s identity and full contact details are listed in the /impressum page (Section 5 TMG).

For data-related requests, email [email protected].

Account data: email address, display name, and hashed password when you create an account.

Payment data: billing information processed by our payment provider (LemonSqueezy, merchant of record). We do not store full credit card numbers.

Usage data: transcription counts, feature usage metrics, and subscription status required to enforce plan limits and improve the product.

Device data: a random device identifier, operating system, and app version for multi-device management and crash diagnostics.

Text data: the text you select for transcription is sent to our API for processing. Transcribed text is not permanently stored on our servers after the response is delivered, except for cached IPA results to improve response speed.

We process your data for the following purposes and legal bases under GDPR Article 6:

(a) Contract performance (Art. 6(1)(b)): providing the transcription service, managing your account, and processing payments.

(b) Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)): improving the product, preventing abuse, and ensuring service security.

(c) Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)): retaining billing records as required by German Commercial Code (HGB §257) and tax regulations (AO §147).

(d) Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)): non-essential cookies, analytics tracking (via the cookie banner), and marketing emails. Consent can be withdrawn at any time without affecting prior lawful processing.

Account data is retained while your account is active and for 30 days after deletion to allow recovery.

Billing records are retained for the legally required period (10 years under HGB §257 / AO §147).

Usage metrics are retained in aggregated, anonymized form indefinitely for product analytics.

Cached IPA transcription results do not contain personally identifiable information.

We share data only with service providers necessary to operate IPAtics: Supabase (database hosting), Cloudflare R2 (audio cache), Google Cloud (text-to-speech), OpenAI (IPA transcription AI), LemonSqueezy (payment processing, EU merchant of record), Sentry (error reporting), and PostHog (analytics, opt-in only).

For transfers outside the EEA (notably OpenAI and Google Cloud in the United States), we rely on EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Decision 2021/914) and the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the recipient is certified, as safeguards under GDPR Chapter V.

We do not sell your personal data to third parties.

Under GDPR Articles 15–22 you have the right to:

(a) Confirm whether we process your personal data and access a copy (Art. 15).

(b) Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data (Art. 16).

(c) Request erasure ("right to be forgotten", Art. 17), subject to legal retention requirements.

(d) Request restriction of processing (Art. 18).

(e) Receive your data in a portable, machine-readable format (Art. 20).

(f) Object to processing based on legitimate interest (Art. 21).

(g) Not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (Art. 22).

To exercise these rights, email [email protected] or use the "Delete Account" and "Export Data" features in the app. We will respond within 30 days.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority of your habitual residence (for German users: your state data-protection authority, BfDI for federal matters).

The IPAtics website uses essential cookies for authentication and session management (no consent required per ePrivacy Art. 5(3) and TTDSG §25(2)).

For non-essential tracking (PostHog product analytics, optional marketing categories), we ask for your prior consent via the cookie banner shown on first visit. You can change or withdraw consent at any time from the banner; doing so does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the change.

The desktop application does not use cookies. It stores authentication tokens securely using OS-level encrypted storage (macOS Keychain / Windows Credential Manager / libsecret on Linux).

The IPAtics mobile app (iOS + Android) processes additional categories of data not present in the desktop application:

Microphone recordings: when you invoke the Speech Analyzer, the app captures short voice samples (≤30 seconds) to perform pronunciation analysis. By default, recordings are deleted after analysis. If you enable Settings → Privacy → "Audio archive", recordings are retained for 30 days in our Cloudflare R2 storage (EU region). Recordings are transmitted via TLS to OpenAI (Whisper API) for speech-to-text transcription and processed by our acoustic analysis pipeline.

Device permissions: the mobile app requires RECORD_AUDIO (Android) and NSMicrophoneUsageDescription (iOS) permissions only for the Speech Analyzer screens. Denying these permissions disables speech analysis but does not affect other features.

Share Extension data: on iOS and Android, the IPAtics share extension reads the text you explicitly share to the app from other applications. Shared text is processed identically to text typed in the in-app editor and is subject to the same retention rules as Section 2.

Analytics events: anonymous product usage events (screen views, feature interactions, error rates) are sent to PostHog (EU region). No transcribed text content, no microphone audio, and no email addresses are included in analytics payloads.

Crash reports: when the app crashes or encounters an unhandled error, Sentry (EU region) collects a stack trace, your user ID, your subscription tier, the device model, and the OS version. No personally identifying user content is included.

We implement industry-standard security measures including HTTPS encryption, hashed passwords, encrypted token storage, IP-whitelisted payment webhooks with HMAC signature validation, and Content Security Policy headers.

On mobile, authentication tokens are stored in Expo SecureStore (iOS Keychain / Android Keystore). When you sign in, the access token is also written to an App Group container so the iOS Share Extension can authenticate as you. Signing out clears all token storage.

We may update this privacy policy to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. We will notify active users via email for material changes.

Data Controller: see /impressum for full legal disclosure (Section 5 TMG).

Email: [email protected]