Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

JIVX (“we”, “us”, “our”) operates the Japanese sentence practice service at jivx.com. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and your rights regarding that information.

We will not share your personal information with anyone except as described in this policy.

2. Information We Collect

Information you provide

• Email address — used for account creation and magic link authentication. This is the only personally identifiable information we require.
• Timezone — used to calculate daily progress and streaks accurately.
• Display name — optional, visible to friends you connect with.

Information generated through use

• Study data — your answers, scores, streaks, spaced repetition intervals, and daily completion counts.
• Garden data — your plant collection, bloom states, and garden layout.
• Friend connections — referral codes, friend links, and garden visits.
• Usage & analytics — pages viewed, features used, and conversion events (such as sign-up and subscription), along with a Google Analytics identifier and, if you arrive from one of our ads, a Google Ads click identifier. We use this to understand product usage and measure our marketing.
• Subscription data — your plan type and billing status. Payment card details are handled entirely by Stripe and never stored on our servers.

Information processed temporarily

• Voice audio — when you use microphone input, your audio is sent to OpenAI (Whisper) for transcription. We do not store your audio recordings.
• Text answers — your Japanese answers are sent to an AI model provider (see section 4) for grading. The text is processed and not retained by us beyond saving your score and feedback.

3. How We Use Your Information

• To provide and maintain the Service.
• To send transactional emails (magic login links, subscription confirmations).
• To calculate your study progress, streaks, and SRS reviews.
• To power the garden and friend features.
• To process payments through Stripe.
• To measure product usage and the effectiveness of our marketing.
• To respond to support requests.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not send promotional emails unless you explicitly opt in. We may send service emails about your account and practice (for example, weekly practice summaries and reminders), which you can opt out of at any time via the unsubscribe link or in Settings.

4. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services to operate JIVX. Each processes data only as necessary to provide their service:

• AI model providers (DeepSeek and Anthropic) — AI grading of Japanese answers, the placement estimate (section 5), and the encouraging summary in your weekly practice email, written from your practice statistics.
• OpenAI (Whisper) — voice-to-text transcription.
• Stripe — payment processing.
• Resend — transactional email delivery.
• Cloudflare — audio file hosting, content delivery, and delivery of practice emails, school alerts, and school correction emails.
• Exa — web search used to build the school directory (see section 5). It receives school names and prefectures, never anything about you.
• Google (Google Analytics & Google Ads) — product analytics and advertising measurement. We share usage and conversion events and, if present, your Google Ads click identifier. We do not share your name, email, or study content with Google.

These services have their own privacy policies. We encourage you to review them.

5. The School Directory

The Japanese language school directory at jivx.com/schools adds the following:

• Watching a school — if you watch a school, we store which schools you watch and since when. We email you at most one digest a week, only when a watched school's status, reports, or fees change, and one final email if a school you watch closes. Every alert has a link to stop watching that school and a link to stop all school alerts. Stopping school alerts doesn't unsubscribe you from practice emails, and unsubscribing from practice emails doesn't stop school alerts. A hard bounce or a spam complaint stops them.
• Placement estimate — the sentences you write are sent once to the AI model provider we use for grading (section 4) to identify the grammar you used. We keep the resulting level profile and the time of each attempt, never your sentences.
• Correcting a school's listing — the correction form asks for a school's course figures, which of the email addresses published on the school's own website should receive the confirmation link, and your email address. We store the figures, that school address and its domain, the dates the request was made, confirmed, and reviewed, and a fingerprint (hash) of the confirmation link, never the link itself. Your email address is used only to tell you whether the correction was approved: it is never shown to the school, never published, and not included in what our review tools see. We delete it 90 days after the request, or within a day of an unconfirmed link expiring (links last 72 hours), and keep the rest as the record of the change. To limit how many requests one network can make, we store a keyed fingerprint (hash) of your network with the request: your IP address, or for IPv6 the /64 block it belongs to. It is keyed with a secret, so it can't be turned back into your address, and we delete it within two days of the request. Your IP address itself is never stored.
• “What learners say” — to summarize public discussion of a school, we use Exa's search API to find public forum threads (on Reddit and learner forums) that mention it. Our searches name only the school and its prefecture. Exa returns each thread's text; we remove usernames before storing it in our own working files, and an AI model (Anthropic's Claude) writes short summaries in our own words. We publish only those summaries and links back to the threads: no quotes and no usernames. Exa is also used to find each school's own website.

6. Cookies and Sessions

We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:

• Essential — a session cookie keeps you logged in. This is required for the Service to function and cannot be disabled while using JIVX.
• Analytics — Google Analytics sets cookies (such as _ga) to measure how the Service is used. Our self-hosted Umami analytics is cookieless.
• Advertising measurement — if you arrive from one of our ads or a referral link, we store the click or referral identifier (for example a _jivx_gclid cookie) to measure whether the visit led to a sign-up or subscription. We do not use cookies to build advertising profiles or to show you ads on other sites.
• School directory attribution — the first time you open a page of the school directory, we set a jivx_first_landing cookie holding that page's address (for example /schools/in/tokyo). It is httpOnly (scripts can't read it), lasts 30 days, and is used only to record which directory page a sign-up started from. If you sign up, that page is saved with your account and deleted with it.

7. Data Retention

• We retain your data for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the Service.
• When you delete your account, all your personal data, study history, garden, and friend connections are permanently removed, along with your school watches, school alerts history, placement attempts, and any school correction requests made with your account's email address.
• The email address given with a school correction request is deleted 90 days after the request, or within a day of an unconfirmed confirmation link expiring. The fingerprint of the network it came from is deleted within two days of the request.
• Accounts inactive for 24 months with no active subscription may have their data removed after prior notice by email.

8. Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Access your personal data — you can view your study data, settings, and profile at any time within the app.
• Correct your information — you can update your email, display name, and timezone in Settings.
• Delete your account and all associated data from the Settings page.
• Request export of your study data by contacting us.

To exercise any of these rights, use the in-app settings or contact us at [email protected].

9. Children's Privacy

JIVX is not intended for children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will promptly delete it.

10. Security

We take reasonable measures to protect your personal information, including encryption of data in transit and at rest. However, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

11. International Transfers

Your information may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your own. By using the Service, you consent to this transfer. We ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your data.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated effective date. For material changes, we will provide notice through the Service or by email. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

13. Contact

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, contact us at [email protected].