Privacy Policy

This policy explains what personal data Paralelo collects, why, who helps us process it, and the choices and rights you have. It covers the website, the reader app and the account-free demo.

Who we are

Paralelo ("we", "us") runs the Paralelo bilingual reading service and is the controller of the personal data described here. You can reach us at britionsystems@gmail.com. [Legal review: add the legal entity name, registered address and, if required, an EU/UK representative or data protection officer.]

What we collect

Your account. Your email address, your password (stored only as a secure hash by our sign-in provider, Clerk), the name you choose to show, your interface language, the language you speak and the language you are learning, your level, the date you confirmed you are at least 13, and the times you signed up and signed in. If you turn on two-step verification, Clerk stores the verification factor. If you sign in with Google we receive your email address, name, profile picture and an account identifier from them. To keep bots from creating accounts, Clerk runs an automatic check on sign-up with Cloudflare.

Your learning. Words you save (with the sentence you found them in), your review history, your reading progress and reading minutes, and your reader settings (color mode, text size, daily goal).

Stories you create. If you use story generation, the theme you type and the story that is written for you, which is saved to your account. We also record when you generated a story and how much processing it used, to enforce the daily limit.

Word definitions. When you look up a word that isn't in our built-in dictionary, the word and its sentence are sent to our AI provider to write a definition. Definitions are stored in a shared dictionary cache that is not linked to you; we record that you requested an AI definition and how much processing it used.

The waitlist. If you join a waitlist or vote for a language, your email address, the list you joined and whether you confirmed it.

Cookie choices. A random identifier for your browser, the choices you made, the version of the Cookie Policy you saw, whether your browser sent a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, the time, and your account if you were signed in.

Security records. A log of important account events (for example sign-up, changes to two-step verification, data exports and account deletion). To stop abuse we count requests per IP address or account for short periods; these counters store only a one-way hash, never the address itself, and expire within an hour. Our hosting provider processes IP addresses to deliver the site and may keep short-lived request logs.

Words you save while signed out. In the demo and on the front page, the words you save (with their sentence and review progress) and the color mode you pick are kept in your browser's storage on your device. Nothing is sent to us until you sign up or sign in; then they are copied into your account and removed from the device. You can clear them at any time by clearing your browser data.

We don't use advertising or analytics tools, and we don't buy data about you.

Why we use it

• To provide the service you asked for (contract): your account, sign-in, reading, saving words, reviews, progress, stories and definitions, and emails you need such as sign-up codes and password resets (sent by Clerk).
• To keep Paralelo secure (legitimate interests): preventing abuse and fraud, rate limiting, and keeping security records.
• With your consent: remembering your theme in a cookie, and sending waitlist emails after you confirm your address. You can withdraw consent at any time.
• To meet legal obligations: for example, keeping records needed to answer a privacy request.

Who helps us

We use these providers to run Paralelo. They process data on our instructions:

• Clerk: sign-up, sign-in, passwords, two-step verification and sign-in emails. [Legal review: confirm Clerk's data processing addendum and region.]
• Supabase: database and file storage. [Legal review: confirm the project region.]
• Vercel: website hosting.
• Anthropic: word definitions and story generation, only when you use those features. We send the word and sentence, or your story theme, not your email address.
• Resend: sending waitlist emails.
• Cloudflare: the bot check on sign-up, on Clerk's behalf.
• Upstash: rate-limit counters (hashed keys only), when enabled.
• Google: only if you choose to sign in with Google.

Some of these providers process data outside your country, including in the United States. [Legal review: confirm the transfer mechanism for each provider, such as Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework.]

We don't sell your personal data and we don't share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

How long we keep it

• Account, learning data and stories: until you delete your account. Deletion is immediate and removes your sign-in account, profile, saved words, reviews, progress, stories and files.
• Data exports: stored privately in your account's storage until you delete your account.
• Waitlist: until you ask us to remove you.
• Cookie choices: kept as proof of consent. [Legal review: set a retention period.]
• Security records: an "account deleted" entry with your former account identifier is kept after deletion so we can show the deletion happened. [Legal review: set a retention period.]
• Backups: deleted data may remain in our providers' backups until they are overwritten, within 90 days. [Legal review: confirm against the hosting plan's backup retention.]

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you can ask to access, correct, delete or export your data, object to or restrict some uses, and withdraw consent. Many of these you can do yourself:

• Download your data: Settings → Your data → Download my data (a JSON file).
• Correct your details: Settings → Profile, and Settings → Manage account for your email address.
• Delete your account: Settings → Your data → Delete account.
• Change cookie choices: "Cookie settings" at the bottom of every page.

For anything else, write to britionsystems@gmail.com. We will answer within one month. You can also complain to your data protection authority.

Do not sell or share my personal information

Paralelo does not sell personal information and does not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of. We still honor Global Privacy Control: when your browser sends it, we treat it as an opt-out of any analytics or marketing cookies. If that ever changes, we will update this section and add a way to opt out before it does.

Children

You must be at least 13 to create an account, and Paralelo is not directed at younger children. If we learn that we hold an account for someone under 13, we will delete it. [Legal review: some EEA countries set the age of digital consent between 14 and 16; decide whether parental consent is needed there.]

Security

All traffic is encrypted with HTTPS. Each person's data is separated at the database level so one account can't read another's. You can turn on two-step verification, passwords found in known data breaches are refused, and deleting your account requires confirming it's you.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy materially we will publish a new version with a new version number and date, and tell signed-in users before the change takes effect.

Contact

Email britionsystems@gmail.com with any question about privacy.