Who we are
TUD is operated by VOGTOV, the developer of the TUD language learning app. In this policy, "TUD", "we", "us", and "our" mean the operator of the TUD language learning service.
Country of establishment: Netherlands. Privacy contact: info@tudapp.com. Website: https://www.tudapp.com.
Age limits
TUD is a general-audience service for users who are at least 13 years old. TUD is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
If you believe a child under 13 has provided personal information to TUD, contact us at info@tudapp.com so we can review and delete it where required.
Information we collect
We collect information you provide, information created when you use TUD, and information processed by service providers that help us run the app.
- Account information, including Firebase user ID, Google or Apple sign-in information, email address, password authentication data handled by Firebase, account verification email delivery metadata, and anonymous guest account identifiers.
- A device key that holds a guest account's free speaking minutes for the device (the Android ID on Android, or a random identifier the app stores in the Keychain on iOS), so closing or reinstalling the app does not restart them. We store only a salted hash of it, and we do not use it for advertising.
- Learning activity, including YAP, CEFR level, mission progress, objectives completed, hints used, daily goal settings, streaks, remaining speaking time, language preferences, and app settings. It also includes the mission phrases saved for you to practise in the TUDDING ROOM and which of them you said right there. This includes the mission buildings you collect by playing, the tier each one reached (the support mode and objectives of your best run), and your history of buying and selling buildings for YAP in the in-app shop.
- Push notification data, including the Firebase Cloud Messaging token of your Android phone or iPhone, device IDs, notification permission status, locale, time zone, app version, and practice reminder jobs.
- Voice and conversation content, including the audio of the replies you speak during missions and of the phrases you repeat in the TUDDING ROOM, the transcripts of those replies, mission review content, and locally saved session diagnostics.
- Voice diagnostics are on by default for signed-in learners and can be turned off at any time in TUD Settings. For each completed voice session, these account-linked records can include bounded per-chunk playback timing and audio-signal summaries, buffer and decode counters, audio-context state and latency, reconnect and app-lifecycle events, browser and Android WebView/app versions, device model and Android build, available audio-output types and native audio settings, battery/power/thermal and memory status, display, locale, time-zone, and network context, and a mission identifier. They do not include raw audio samples or recordings, transcripts, conversation text, tool content, or learner quotes. You can also choose to attach the latest diagnostics to feedback.
- Full session recordings, which are on by default and can be turned off at any time in TUD Settings. For each completed voice mission on a supported app version, TUD can store an account-linked recording bundle containing your microphone audio from the session, the audio of the mission character's spoken lines, the session transcript and mission events (including how each reply was transcribed and checked), app language and support-mode context, runtime app version/build information, and the mission UI state shown for coach cards, objective completion, review, and results. Recording bundles are kept for up to 14 days and then deleted automatically.
- Map drafts, if you have TUD Pro and save a map in the map builder on our website: the scenery and side streets you placed on that city's map (which pieces and streets, where and how large) and when you saved it, one draft per city, linked to your account. A map you are building is also kept in your browser on that device until you clear your browser data, and it reaches us only when you save it.
- Images when you choose to attach a screenshot or image to feedback.
- Questions you type into the TUD helper on our website. We do not store them, or the answers. To keep the helper from being overused we count questions per day against a hashed form of your IP address and keep that counter for about two days. We do not store the address itself, browser details, or any link to an account.
- Feedback and support information, including your feedback text, current screen, user level, Pro status, optional screenshot URL, and automated feedback tags or summaries.
- Mission feedback, including the objectives you select after a mission, your comments, and optional voice notes of up to 60 seconds. Mission feedback is stored separately from general product feedback and the voice notes are kept in restricted Firebase Storage. Mission feedback and its voice notes are deleted automatically after 14 days. If a comment raises something we want to act on later, we keep a copy of the written text under a topic, without your account identifier and without the voice recording.
- Purchase and subscription status, including whether you have TUD Pro, subscription lifecycle events received from RevenueCat, and purchase state managed by Google Play or the Apple App Store.
- Advertising and analytics data, including app events, rewarded-ad activity, device identifiers such as advertising identifiers where available, approximate device or app context, crash or diagnostic information, and aggregated usage information.
- Journey signals, meaning your in-app activity such as the days you finished missions, the last time you opened the app, and how much of the daily speaking time you used over the last 14 days. TUD uses these to decide which offers and reminders to show you inside the app, and shares the resulting stage with RevenueCat and Firebase Analytics as a plain label. They are not used for advertising outside TUD. When you are away for three days or more, TUD also keeps a record of that quiet spell: when it started, the likely reason read from these signals and from the session details already described here (for example running out of daily speaking time, or a microphone error), which reminders reached you, and whether you came back. These records help TUD learn which reminders actually help, are never shown to other learners or used for advertising, and are deleted after 180 days or when you delete your account. When you come back, TUD may ask what kept you away. Answering is optional: if you tap an answer, TUD saves which of the listed answers you chose (never your own words) on your account and adds it to the record of that quiet spell.
- Marketing email consent, meaning whether you said yes or no to practice tips and TUD Pro offers by email, when and where you answered (the in-app question, TUD Settings, or an unsubscribe link), and which version of this policy applied. It exists only for signed-in accounts with an email address.
- Local device data stored in your browser or app storage, including preferences, transcript display settings, word vault entries, recent session logs, daily history, onboarding status, and other local app state.
Device permissions
TUD asks for device permissions only when a feature needs them. You can manage permissions in your browser or device settings.
- Microphone access is used so you can answer out loud during speaking missions, and to record an optional mission-feedback voice note when you choose to.
- Photo library or image access is used only when you choose to attach a screenshot or image to feedback.
- Notification access is used only if you choose to enable practice reminders on Android or iPhone.
- Network access is used to connect to Firebase, Google Cloud (including Cloud Speech-to-Text and Cloud Text-to-Speech), RevenueCat, Google Play, the Apple App Store, AdMob, and related services.
How we use information
- Provide, maintain, and personalize the TUD language learning experience.
- Run voice roleplay missions and the TUDDING ROOM practice, play the mission character's spoken lines and the practice phrases, transcribe and check your spoken replies, process mission progress, and create mission reviews.
- Authenticate users, send account verification emails, sync progress across sessions, and protect accounts from unauthorized access.
- Manage TUD Pro subscriptions, restore purchases, process subscription lifecycle events, and enforce access limits.
- Provide rewarded ads and measure whether a rewarded ad was completed.
- Send optional streak reminders and service update prompts when you opt in or when the app store for your platform reports an update is available.
- Send practice tips and TUD Pro offers by email only if you said yes to them, choosing which email to send from the journey signals described above.
- Understand app reliability, improve onboarding, diagnose bugs, classify feedback, and prioritize fixes.
- Review objective-level mission feedback, where you choose to submit it, to improve mission instructions, grading, and support.
- Review full session recordings, where enabled, to investigate reported problems, check mission behavior, and improve mission quality.
- Communicate with you about support, account deletion, policy changes, and service updates.
- Comply with legal obligations, enforce our terms, prevent fraud, and protect users and the service.
Legal bases
Where EU, EEA, UK, or similar privacy laws apply, we rely on the following legal bases depending on the data and feature involved.
- Account creation, sign-in, account security, and progress sync: necessary to provide the service you request and perform our agreement with you.
- Voice missions, speech transcription, mission reviews, and learning progress: necessary to provide the language practice features you request.
- TUD Pro purchase and subscription status: necessary to perform our agreement with you and meet legal, accounting, refund, tax, and fraud-prevention obligations.
- Security, abuse prevention, service reliability, and diagnostics: our legitimate interests in protecting TUD, users, accounts, and platform availability.
- Optional practice reminders and push notifications: your consent where required and your device or app notification choices.
- Rewarded ads, advertising identifiers, ad personalization, and ad measurement: your consent where required, and legitimate interests for non-personalized measurement, fraud prevention, and frequency capping where allowed.
- Feedback, support messages, and optional screenshots: your request or consent, plus our legitimate interests in answering support requests and improving TUD.
- Objective-level mission feedback and optional voice notes: your request or consent, plus our legitimate interests in understanding mission quality and improving objectives.
- Account-linked voice diagnostics: our legitimate interests in diagnosing reliability and improving TUD, with consent where required by local law. You can disable future automatic sharing at any time in TUD Settings.
- Full session recordings: our legitimate interests in reviewing mission quality and diagnosing session problems, with consent where required by local law. Recordings are on by default and you can turn them off at any time in TUD Settings; turning them off stops new recordings immediately.
- Analytics and product improvement: our legitimate interests in understanding reliability and usage, with consent where required by law or platform rules.
- Legal compliance, dispute handling, rights enforcement, and responding to lawful requests: legal obligations and our legitimate interests.
AI and voice processing
Voice practice: the mission character's lines and the TUDDING ROOM's practice phrases are written in advance and read aloud by Google Cloud Text-to-Speech, so none of your speech or other learner content is sent to produce them. When you answer out loud, the audio of that reply is sent through TUD's Cloud Functions to Google Cloud Speech-to-Text in the European Union (Google Cloud region europe-west4), which returns a transcript, and the app checks that transcript against the mission objective or the phrase being practised. TUD's transcription function does not store the reply audio. Transcripts, mission reviews, progress, and diagnostics may be stored where needed to provide learning features, troubleshoot issues, protect the service, or comply with legal obligations.
Full session recordings: on supported app versions, TUD stores a recording bundle for each completed voice mission unless you turn recordings off in TUD Settings. The bundle contains your microphone audio, the audio of the mission character's spoken lines, the session transcript and mission events (including how each reply was transcribed and checked), app language and support-mode context, runtime app version/build information, and the mission UI state shown for coach cards, objective completion, review, and results. Recording bundles are linked to your Firebase user ID, stored with restricted access, used to review and improve mission quality and investigate problems, and deleted automatically after 14 days.
Earlier live voice path: app versions released before August 2026 ran missions as a live conversation, sending microphone audio and session context through a TUD live broker to Google Cloud Vertex AI (Gemini Live). That path was shut down in September 2026, so no app version sends data to it any more.
Voice diagnostics: unless you turn them off in TUD Settings, TUD automatically sends a bounded technical snapshot for each completed voice session of a signed-in learner. The snapshot can include playback and decode timing, numerical audio-signal summaries, buffering and audio-context information, reconnect and app-lifecycle events, browser and Android WebView/app versions, device model and Android build, available audio-output types and native audio settings, battery/power/thermal and memory status, display, locale, time-zone, and network context, and a mission identifier. You can also choose to attach the latest snapshot to feedback. These snapshots are linked to your Firebase user ID so support can find the affected account, but they exclude raw audio samples or recordings, transcripts, conversation text, tool content, thought text, objective wording, and learner quotes.
Mission feedback voice notes are optional recordings attached to the specific objectives you select after a mission. They are stored separately from general feedback in restricted Firebase Storage for mission-quality review and are not added to the general feedback stream. Each voice note is transcribed automatically by Google Cloud Speech-to-Text, processed in the European Union (europe-west4), so the team can read what was said. The transcript is stored with the note and deleted with it after 14 days. Where a note is kept longer, its written text and the transcript of a voice note may be kept, while the recording itself never is.
Website helper: when you ask the TUD helper on our website a question, the text of your last few messages is sent through TUD's Cloud Functions to Google Cloud Vertex AI (Gemini), together with the public text of our own website pages, so it can answer from them. We do not store your questions or the answers, and the helper does not need an account or ask for your name. Its answers can be wrong, so check the page it points to. Do not type personal details into it.
AI output can be incomplete, inaccurate, or inappropriate. Do not share highly sensitive personal information during language practice unless you are comfortable having it processed to provide the service.
Practice tips and offers by email
TUD sends practice tips and TUD Pro offers by email only if you say yes. The question is asked once, inside the app, after you have finished missions on more than one day. Nothing is pre-selected, closing the question counts as no, and a guest account is never asked.
If you say yes, you may receive at most a few emails a month: a reminder to practise when you have been away for a few days, and occasionally a TUD Pro trial or a win-back offer. Which email you get depends on the journey signals described above. Every email comes from a TUD address, says why you are receiving it, and has a one-click unsubscribe link. You can also turn this off at any time in TUD Settings.
Account emails, such as verification messages, are not marketing and are sent regardless of this choice. We do not sell or share your email address for anyone else's marketing.
Storage and security
We use technical and organizational measures intended to protect personal information, including Firebase security rules, authenticated access controls, encrypted transport, and provider security controls.
No online service is completely secure. You are responsible for keeping your device, account credentials, and app-store account secure.
Retention
We keep personal information only for as long as reasonably needed for the purposes described in this policy, unless a longer period is required or allowed by law.
- Account and learning progress data is generally kept until you delete your account, request deletion, or a future inactivity policy applies.
- Full session recording bundles, including raw mission audio, are scheduled for automatic deletion after 14 days. If you turn recordings off in TUD Settings, TUD stops storing new recording bundles immediately. The separate voice-diagnostics feature still does not upload raw audio samples or recordings.
- Transcripts, mission reviews, scenario progress, and learning history may be kept until you delete your account, clear local session history where available, or request deletion, subject to the exceptions in this policy.
- A map draft is kept until you save a new one for the same city or delete your account.
- Local app data stays on your device until you clear it, uninstall the app, or use an app feature that removes it.
- Questions typed into the website helper, and its answers, are not stored. The daily counters that limit its use, which hold only a hashed form of an IP address and a number, are kept for about two days.
- Feedback text and optional screenshots may be kept while needed to investigate, classify, and resolve reported issues, or until deletion is required or requested.
- Mission feedback, including your comments, any voice notes and their transcripts, is scheduled for automatic deletion after 14 days, the same period as a session recording. Where a comment raises something we want to act on later, we keep a copy of the written text, or the transcript of a voice note, under a topic. That copy carries no account identifier and no voice recording, and deleting your account removes the pseudonymous reference from it.
- Uploaded voice diagnostic snapshots are scheduled for deletion after 30 days. Local session logs remain on your device until you clear app data, uninstall the app, or a removal feature is provided.
- Your marketing email choice is kept with your account until you delete the account. If you unsubscribe, or an email to you bounces or is reported as spam, we keep a hashed form of your address on a suppression list after account deletion so that we do not email it again. That record holds no name and no readable address.
- Purchase, subscription, refund, fraud-prevention, and security records may be retained as needed for accounting, tax, dispute handling, abuse prevention, platform compliance, and legal compliance.
- Logs, diagnostics, and security events are generally kept only as long as needed for reliability, abuse prevention, investigation, or legal compliance.
- Aggregated or de-identified data that no longer identifies you may be retained for analytics, reliability, and product improvement.
Your privacy rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, export, restrict, or object to the processing of your personal information. You may also have the right to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent. To make a request, contact info@tudapp.com.
We may need to verify your identity before completing a request. Some data may be retained where required or allowed for security, fraud prevention, legal compliance, payment records, or dispute resolution.
If you are in the EU or EEA, you may also lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. In the Netherlands, this is the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens.
Account and data deletion
You can request deletion of your TUD account and associated app data through the Delete Account page or by contacting info@tudapp.com.
Deleting your TUD account does not automatically cancel a Google Play or Apple App Store subscription. You must cancel active subscriptions through the store that manages your subscription to stop future charges.
International processing
TUD and its providers may process information in countries other than the country where you live. Those countries may have different data protection laws. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards for international transfers.
Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy as the service changes. The updated version will show a new last-updated date. If changes are material, we will provide additional notice where required.