Vernac

Privacy Policy

Effective date: 12 July 2026

We collect the minimum needed to personalize your word feed: your onboarding answers, your learning activity, and standard device data. We don’t sell your data. We don’t show your data to other users. You can delete everything, anytime.

1. Who we are

Vernac is an AI-powered vocabulary learning application developed and operated by Pureheart Moluno (“we,” “us,” or “our”). If you have questions about this policy, contact us at contact@pmoluno.com.

2. What this policy covers

This policy describes how we collect, use, store, and share information when you use the Vernac mobile application (iOS and Android) and any related services, including our website. By using Vernac, you agree to the practices described here.

3. Information we collect

3.1 Information you provide

• Account details: email address and password when you create an account.
• Profile data: age range, occupation, interests, vocabulary goals, and learning preferences you share during onboarding or in settings.
• User-generated content: sentences you write in the “use it in a sentence” practice mode and responses you post to the Word of the Day community feature.
• Communications: messages you send to us via email or in-app support.

Any name or display name you set within the app exists solely on your device and is not transmitted to or stored on our servers. We do not collect your real name.

3.2 Information collected automatically

• Usage data: words viewed, swipe directions, practice results, session length, and in-app actions (saved words, collections, shares).
• Device information: device model, OS version, app version, locale, and time zone.
• Identifiers: app-generated IDs (created at install time by the Vernac app) and service-generated IDs (assigned by third-party services such as Expo and PostHog) to identify a device session. We do not collect hardware identifiers such as IMEI numbers, MAC addresses, or device serial numbers.
• Notification data: whether notifications were delivered and opened.
• Crash and performance data: error logs, stack traces, and performance metrics.

3.3 Information from third parties

• Payment providers: subscription status and transaction identifiers (we never see your full payment card details — these are handled by Apple App Store or Google Play).
• Referrals: if you arrive via a referral link, we receive the referrer’s identifier.

3.4 Website analytics (vernac.app)

When you visit our website, independently of whether you use the mobile app, we collect: pages viewed, referring site and campaign parameters (UTM), approximate location (country, region, and city, derived from your IP address via a third-party geolocation lookup — we do not store your IP address itself, only a one-way hashed version and the resolved location), device type, browser, and operating system, and interactions such as clicking “Get the app” links or outbound links. We set two first-party cookies to support this: one that identifies a returning visitor (kept up to a year) and one that groups activity into a browsing session (kept up to 30 minutes of inactivity). These cookies are not linked to your Vernac account and are not used for advertising or shared with ad networks. This data is used solely to understand website traffic and improve the site and app marketing.

4. How we use your information

• To operate and deliver the Vernac service, including your personalized word feed, spaced repetition schedule, and practice sessions.
• To power AI personalization — your profile data (occupation, interests, goals, vocabulary level) is used to prompt our AI system to generate contextually relevant example sentences and to rank words for your queue. This data is sent to our AI providers under data processing agreements.
• To send push notifications and schedule word delivery according to your preferences.
• To process subscription payments and manage your account status via RevenueCat.
• To improve the app through aggregated analytics and crash reporting.
• To detect and prevent fraud, abuse, and policy violations.
• To respond to your support requests.
• To comply with legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal data to third parties for their own marketing purposes.

5. AI processing

Vernac uses large language models (primarily Anthropic Claude and OpenAI GPT) to generate personalized example sentences and context hooks for vocabulary words. A limited subset of your profile data (occupation, interests, vocabulary level, and learning goal) may be included in prompts sent to these providers. We do not send your name, email address, or payment information to AI providers.

AI providers process this data under their own privacy policies and under data processing agreements with us. We retain AI-generated content in our database associated with your account.

If you submit a sentence in the “use it in a sentence” feature, that sentence is sent to the AI provider for grading. User-submitted sentences are not used to train third-party AI models unless you explicitly opt in to a research programme.

6. Third-party services

RevenueCat (subscription management), Anthropic (AI content generation), OpenAI (AI content generation and text embeddings), ElevenLabs (text-to-speech for word pronunciations), PostHog (product analytics, pseudonymous), Sentry (crash and error reporting), Expo / EAS (over-the-air updates and push notifications), Cloudflare (CDN and DNS), and GeoJS (IP-to-location lookup used to show approximate visitor location for our website analytics). Each provider is bound by their own privacy policy and, where required, a data processing agreement with us.

7. Data retention

We retain your account and profile data for as long as your account is active. Usage and activity data is retained for up to 24 months for personalization and analytics purposes, then aggregated or deleted. Crash logs are retained for 90 days. Website analytics events (see 3.4) are retained for up to 24 months and are not tied to an account. If you delete your account, we delete your personal data within 30 days, except where we are required to retain it by law (e.g. financial records related to purchases).

8. Children

Vernac is not directed at children under 13 (or under 16 in the EEA). We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under these ages, and will delete it promptly if we learn we have. Mature content categories (mature language, relationships) are gated behind an age-verification step requiring users to confirm they are 18 or older.

9. Your rights

You may have the right to access, correct, delete, or port your data, and to restrict, object to, or withdraw consent for certain processing. Email contact@pmoluno.com to exercise any right — we respond within 30 days. You can also delete your account directly from the app: Settings → Account → Delete account.

California residents (CCPA):the right to know what’s collected, the right to delete it, and the right to opt out of its sale. We do not sell personal information.

EEA and UK residents (GDPR / UK GDPR): our legal bases are contract performance, legitimate interests (analytics, fraud prevention, product improvement), and consent (marketing communications). You may lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.

10. Security

We implement reasonable technical and organizational measures — TLS encryption in transit, encrypted storage for credentials, and rate limiting on our APIs. No system is completely secure. Report security issues to contact@pmoluno.com.

11. International transfers

Your data may be transferred to and processed in countries outside your own, including the United States, where our infrastructure and some service providers are based. Where required, we rely on standard contractual clauses or other approved transfer mechanisms.

12. Changes

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be announced via email or in-app notification at least 14 days before they take effect, with the effective date updated above. Continued use after that date means acceptance.

13. Contact

Questions, requests, or concerns? Email contact@pmoluno.com.