Privacy Policy

In this policy, “we” and “us” mean the people who make GramStar. If you have a question about privacy, email privacy@gramstar.app.

To work, the app saves a few things in its own storage on your iPhone:

• Your progress: your level ratings, run history and grades, streaks and streak freezes, badges and titles, topic mastery, the questions you’ve already seen, and the mistakes in your review deck.
• Your profile: the nickname and profile photo you choose to add. Both are optional.
• Your settings: such as your level, daily goal, reminder time, English style (US or UK), sound and timer.

All of this stays on your iPhone. It isn’t sent to us or to anyone else, and we can’t see it. GramStar doesn’t sync your progress through iCloud or any other service.

GramStar also keeps a copy of your progress and profile photo on your iPhone, which stays there even if you delete the app. So if you delete GramStar and install it again, you carry on where you left off. This copy never leaves your iPhone, except inside your own encrypted backups or a transfer to a new iPhone, and only GramStar can read it.

Like the data of your other apps, all of this is included in your iPhone’s own backups if you use them (iCloud Backup, or a backup on a computer). Apple handles those backups under Apple’s Privacy Policy.

• There’s no account, sign-up or login.
• The app has no ads, no analytics and no tracking, and no advertising identifier is used.
• There’s no third-party code in the app that collects data.
• GramStar has no server for your play or your profile. The only server we run receives notices from Apple about purchases (see Purchases). We don’t sell or share your data, because we don’t hold any that identifies you.

GramStar asks for a permission only when you use the feature that needs it. You can change these any time in your iPhone’s Settings app, under GramStar.

• Notifications, for the daily reminder, if you turn it on. The reminder is scheduled on your iPhone. Nothing is sent through a server.
• Camera, only if you choose to take a profile photo.
• Photos. When you choose a profile photo from your library, GramStar uses Apple’s photo picker, so it receives only the photo you pick. When you save a share card, GramStar asks to add images to your Photos. It can’t read your library.

Share cards for your grade, streak, badges and titles are made on your iPhone. When you tap Share, GramStar hands the image to the iOS share sheet, and you decide where it goes. A card shows your nickname and what you’re sharing, such as a grade or a badge. It never shows your photo.

The app or service you send it to, such as Messages or Instagram, handles it under its own privacy policy. GramStar sends nothing on its own. The only things that leave your iPhone are the ones you choose to send, like a share card or a question report.

GramStar Nova is sold through Apple’s App Store. Apple handles the payment and your Apple Account. We never see your payment details or who you are. GramStar uses Apple’s StoreKit on your iPhone to check whether you have Nova. Apple’s handling of purchases is covered by Apple’s Privacy Policy.

If you’ve chosen to share analytics with app developers in your iPhone’s settings, Apple may give us summary statistics, such as the number of downloads, or crash reports. These come from Apple, not from GramStar, and they don’t identify you.

When someone buys, renews, cancels or gets a refund for GramStar Nova, Apple sends a notice about it to a GramStar server. It says which plan, the price, the date and Apple’s transaction number. It doesn’t include your name, email address or payment details, and we can’t tell who you are from it. We keep these notices for seven years for accounting and refunds, stored with Amazon Web Services in Singapore.

If you choose Report this question in the app, GramStar writes a short note with the question’s number, the sentence, the options and your answer, and opens the share sheet. Nothing is sent unless you send it.

When you email us, we receive what you send, including your email address. We use it only to reply and to fix the problem. If you ask, we’ll delete your messages.

Test versions of GramStar in Apple’s TestFlight also have a Send beta report button. It shares an anonymous summary of your play, such as days played, runs and accuracy, and only when you tap it. The App Store version doesn’t have this button.

GramStar doesn’t collect personal information from anyone, and that includes children.

• Reset your progress: in GramStar, open Settings and choose Reset progress. This clears your ratings, streaks, badges and history on your iPhone. Your nickname and settings stay.
• Remove your photo: on your profile, tap the camera button and choose Use a star avatar.
• Change your nickname: on your profile, tap the pencil.

To delete everything, do these in order:

1. In GramStar, open Settings and choose Reset progress.
2. On your profile, choose Use a star avatar, and clear your nickname.
3. Delete GramStar from your iPhone.

Deleting the app on its own keeps that copy, so a reinstall would pick up where you left off. That’s why the reset comes first. Copies may also stay in your own iPhone backups until those are replaced.

We hold no data that identifies you, so there’s nothing for us to delete, apart from emails you’ve sent us. Ask, and we’ll delete those.

gramstar.app sets no cookies and loads nothing from other websites until you choose. A small banner asks whether we may count visits with Google Analytics. We remember your answer in your browser’s storage on this site and ask again after about a year. You can change it at any time with “Analytics choices” in the footer.

If you say yes, Google Analytics sets cookies in your browser and sends Google details of your visit: the pages you read and when, roughly where you are (worked out from your IP address, which Google Analytics doesn’t store), your device, browser and language, and the site you came from. We use this to see how many people visit and which pages are read. We’ve switched off Google’s advertising features and signals, and we don’t join this data to anything else. Google handles it under Google’s Privacy Policy, and Google offers an opt-out add-on for your browser.

If you say no, nothing is loaded from Google. A Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal from your browser counts as a no.

Like any website, our web host processes basic technical information, such as IP addresses, to deliver the pages and keep the site secure. The GramStar app has no analytics; this section is only about the website.

If we change this policy, we’ll update this page and the effective date at the top. If a future version of GramStar changes what happens to your data, such as adding iCloud sync, we’ll update this policy before that version is released.

Questions? Email privacy@gramstar.app.