Fluent with Charlie

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 11 October 2026

Fluent with Charlie is a voice app for practising conversation in a foreign language. This page explains what information we collect, why, who helps us process it, and your rights over it.

Who we are

Fluent with Charlie is run by Richard Stott, who is the data controller responsible for your information under UK data protection law. You can contact us about anything on this page at help@fluentwithcharlie.com.

What we collect

• Your account. Your email address. If you sign in with Google, we also receive the name and profile picture on your Google account. We use these only to sign you in and identify your account.
• Your practice history. For each conversation: when it started and how long it lasted, the language, level and topic you chose, how many turns you took, and summary figures about your speaking — such as speaking pace, words per turn, and counts of grammar mistakes by type (for example "verb: 3").
• Your vocabulary lists. The individual words you used in each conversation, in dictionary form with an English meaning, and any words you tapped to translate. We keep these so you can see your vocabulary grow on your Progress page. We do not store your sentences.
• Your practice-time balance. The minutes you have been granted and used.
• Settings on your device. Your chosen language, level and display preferences are stored in your browser, along with the token that keeps you signed in. These are strictly necessary for the app to work, so we don't ask for cookie consent, and we use no other cookies.

Your voice and conversations

When you talk to Charlie, your voice is streamed in real time to be transcribed, so Charlie can reply, and Charlie's replies are turned back into speech. We do not record or keep your audio, and we do not store transcripts of your conversations. Your voice is used only to work out what you said — never to identify you. While we are improving the app, short fragments of what you said may appear in diagnostic logs; these are kept only briefly (see "How long we keep it") and are not used for anything else.

Charlie adjusts how hard he speaks based on how your conversation is going — for example, using simpler language if you're finding it difficult. This affects only the practice conversation itself; no decision with any legal or similarly significant effect on you is made automatically.

Why we use it (our lawful basis)

• To provide the service you signed up for (contract) — running your account, your conversations with Charlie, your practice-time balance, your feedback and your Progress page.
• Our legitimate interests — keeping the app secure, preventing misuse, fixing problems (diagnostic logs) and understanding in aggregate how the app is used and what it costs to run, so we can improve it. We keep this to the minimum needed, and you can object to it (see "Your rights").

We don't rely on consent and don't use your information for marketing. We need your email address to create an account; without it you can't use the app.

Who processes your information

We use these service providers to run the app. Each acts on our instructions under a data processing agreement and may only use your information to provide its service to us:

• Supabase — accounts, sign-in and our database.
• Vercel — hosting this website.
• Pipecat Cloud and Daily — running the voice conversation and carrying the audio.
• Deepgram — turning your speech into text. We have opted out of Deepgram using your audio to train its models.
• OpenAI — generating Charlie's replies, spotting grammar mistakes, word translations and your end-of-chat summary. OpenAI does not use data sent through its API to train its models.
• Cartesia — Charlie's voice (it receives Charlie's words, not yours).
• Resend — sending sign-in emails.
• Google — only if you choose "Continue with Google".

Some providers may keep data for a short period under their own terms, for example for security and abuse monitoring.

International transfers

Several of these providers are based in, or process data in, the United States. Where your information is transferred outside the UK, it is protected by the safeguards UK law requires: either the provider is certified under the UK–US Data Bridge, or the transfer is covered by the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, included in the provider's data processing agreement. You can ask us for more detail about these safeguards.

What we don't do

• We don't sell or rent your information.
• We don't show ads or use advertising or tracking cookies.
• We don't use analytics services that follow you around the web.
• We don't use your Google account data for anything except signing you in.

How long we keep it

• Your account, practice history and vocabulary lists — for as long as you have an account, so your progress is there when you come back. When you ask us to delete your account, we delete it and everything linked to it straight away; copies may remain in our database provider's backups for up to 30 days before they are overwritten.
• Diagnostic logs — kept only for a limited number of lines, so they are overwritten automatically, usually within days.
• Sign-in emails — our email provider keeps delivery records for a limited period under its own terms.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• access — get a copy of the information we hold about you;
• rectification — have inaccurate information corrected;
• erasure — have your account and information deleted;
• restriction — ask us to limit how we use your information;
• objection — object to uses based on our legitimate interests;
• portability — receive your information in a machine-readable format.

To use any of these rights, email help@fluentwithcharlie.com. There's no charge, and we'll respond within one month.

Complaints

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, please contact us first at help@fluentwithcharlie.com and we'll do our best to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK's data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.

Children

Fluent with Charlie is not intended for children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.

Changes

If we change this policy, we'll update this page and the date at the top. If the changes are significant, we'll let you know by email.