This Privacy Policy describes how the HearFlash mobile application, developed by Williamapps, collects, uses, and protects your information when you use our services.
1. Information Collection and Use
HearFlash is designed with a privacy-focused, local-first philosophy. This means that the majority of your study progress and flashcards are stored securely directly on your physical device. However, to provide specific optional features, we interact with the following third-party services:
A. Authentication and Cloud Backup (Google Sign-In & Google Drive API)
Authentication: If you choose to enable the cloud backup feature, we use Google Sign-In to connect securely to your account. We only access your name and email address to validate and identify your backup profile.
Google Drive Access: HearFlash utilizes a private, application-specific data folder in your Google Drive (known as drive.appdata). The application has no access to any of your other personal files, photos, folders, or documents stored in your Google Drive. Access is strictly limited to creating, saving, and retrieving the backup files generated directly by HearFlash.
B. Advertising Network (Google AdMob)
The application displays ads using the Google AdMob service to support continuous and free development.
Google AdMob may collect and process certain device identifiers (such as the Android Advertising ID - AAID), approximate location data (network-level), and ad interaction statistics to deliver relevant ads or perform analytical reporting.
C. Offline Translation (Google ML Kit Translation)
Translations of study cards and individual words are processed completely locally and offline on your device using the Google ML Kit SDK. The initial download of language packages (~30MB) uses secure connections directly to Google's servers, and no study text is sent or stored on any external servers.
2. Data Sharing
We do not sell, rent, or share any personal data or study history of our users with third parties under any circumstances. The only external data flows are the direct, secure transactions between your device and Google services for backup and advertising purposes, as detailed in Section 1.
3. Data Retention and Deletion
Since your data is stored locally on your device and inside your own private Google Drive folder:
You can unlink your Google Account and disable backup at any time directly from the application's settings.
You can delete your local data by clearing the app's cache or uninstalling the app from your device.
To delete your cloud backup, you can manage your Google Account connected apps and revoke access to HearFlash.
4. Security
All data communications with Google Drive and Google AdMob are encrypted in transit using the secure HTTPS protocol.
5. Changes to This Policy
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with the revised date at the top.
6. Contact Us
If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments about this Privacy Policy, please contact us via the developer email provided on the Google Play Store.