Privacy Policy

Last updated: 6 June 2026

Halm is a language-learning app built so that, by default, nothing leaves your device. There are no accounts, no advertising, and no third-party tracking. This policy explains exactly what Halm does and does not do with your data, in plain language.

This policy is shown inside the Halm app (Settings → Privacy Policy) and published here so the app and website share one source of truth.

In short

• Halm collects nothing automatically. Data reaches us only when you choose to send it.
• Anything that is sent is anonymous: no name, no email, no account, and no device or advertising identifiers.
• Your lessons, words, and progress are private to you and sync through your own iCloud account, which Halm cannot read.
• The AI that writes your stories and the voices that read them run entirely on your iPhone.
• You can inspect, export, or delete everything Halm records, at any time.

What we collect, and only when you choose to send it

Halm has exactly four ways data can ever leave your device, and each one requires a deliberate action from you.

1. Usage analytics — off by default

If, and only if, you turn on "Help improve Halm" in Settings → Privacy & Data, Halm periodically sends a small batch of usage events to help us understand which features are used.

These events are string labels from a fixed list (for example lesson_started, word_saved, review_session_completed) together with simple typed values such as a language code, a CEFR level, or a count. They never include story text, translations, your name, or anything you typed.

Each upload also carries the app version and the iOS version, as major-and-minor numbers only (for example 1.0 and 18.0). Every batch is tagged with a fresh, one-time identifier that is never stored, so uploads cannot be linked together or back to you.

You can review every recorded event under Diagnostics, and clear them, at any time. Turning the toggle off stops all uploads.

2. Rating a lesson — thumbs up or down

When you finish a lesson you can tap thumbs up or thumbs down. Halm sends only that rating, along with the lesson's language and dialect. If you also pick a reason or add a note in your own words, those stay on your device — they are not sent. The story text itself is never sent.

3. Reporting a translation — your choice

If you tap to report a wrong translation, Halm sends the word or phrase from the story, the sentence it appears in, what Apple's on-device translator produced, the language pair, and — only if you typed one — your suggested correction.

Before anything leaves your device, your name is removed from the sentence and replaced with [name], and the report sheet shows you the sentence that will be sent so you can see it first. These reports contain no email or account.

4. Reporting a problem — you send it yourself

The "Report a problem" option composes an email to Halm with your local diagnostics log attached. The app does not send it: you review the full contents in your own Mail app and send it yourself. If Mail is not set up, a share sheet lets you send it another way. The attached log is the same string-label event list described above — no personal data.

Why we collect it

Everything above is used for two purposes only:

• To improve Halm — understanding which features are used (analytics), and
• To make the app work better — fixing story quality, translation accuracy, and bugs (the reports).

It is never used for advertising, never sold, and never shared with third parties for their own purposes. Halm does not track you across other apps or websites.

Where it goes, and where it stays

Most of your data never leaves your iPhone.

• On your device only: your saved words and review schedule, lesson history, cached news articles, generated practice scenarios, downloaded voice models, and the local analytics queue all live in on-device storage.
• In your own iCloud: your learning progress, saved words, settings, and history sync through Apple's CloudKit using your iCloud account. This keeps your data in sync across your devices. Halm has no access to it — only you do.
• To Halm, only when you choose: the four paths above send their data to halm.app. These requests carry no authentication and no identifier; they are anonymous by design.
• Anonymous downloads: to fetch voices and their catalog, and to load news articles you read in the Library, Halm makes ordinary anonymous web requests. These send no personal data.

What we don't collect

Halm does not collect, request, or transmit any of the following:

• Your real name or email address (your name, if you enter one, is used only to personalise stories on-device and is removed before any text is sent).
• Location, contacts, photos, calendar, camera, or microphone recordings.
• Health data.
• An advertising identifier (IDFA) or a device identifier (IDFV).
• Any installation ID or other identifier that could link your activity over time.

Halm contains no third-party analytics or advertising SDKs, and does no cross-app tracking.

On-device AI

The stories you read, the practice scenarios, and the neural voices that read them are all generated on your iPhone. Your learning content is not sent to a server to be created.

Your controls

You are always in control of your data:

• Help improve Halm — the analytics toggle in Settings → Privacy & Data is off by default. Turn it on or off whenever you like.
• Diagnostics — inspect every event recorded on your device, export it as a file, or clear all of it.
• Reports are opt-in by action — lesson ratings, translation reports, and problem reports only ever send something when you tap to send them.
• Clear cache — remove generated images and pre-rendered audio from your device at any time; your vocabulary and progress are untouched.
• Notifications — daily reminders are off by default and scheduled entirely on your device.

Children

Halm is a general-audience language-learning app. It does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children.

Changes to this policy

If we change how Halm handles data, we will update this policy and the "Last updated" date above, and publish the change in an app update.

Contact

Questions about your privacy? Email us at support@halm.app.