Privacy Policy
This describes exactly what Bandwise collects, what leaves your phone, and what does not. It is written to be read, not to be skimmed past.
The short version. Your voice recordings never leave your device. Speech is converted to text on the phone itself, with no fallback to a server. The resulting text is sent to be scored, which means the words you spoke are processed by a third party. Everything else is account and progress data.
1. Who we are
Bandwise is an independent IELTS speaking practice app. In this policy, "we" means the developer of Bandwise and "you" means the person using the app.
2. Your recordings stay on your device
When you answer a question, the audio is written to your phone's storage and stays there. There is no cloud storage bucket for recordings. We cannot listen to them, because we never receive them.
Speech is converted to text using Apple's on-device speech recognition. The app explicitly requires on-device recognition and does not fall back to Apple's servers — if on-device recognition is unavailable on your phone, transcription fails rather than sending your audio somewhere else.
Deleting an answer deletes its audio file. Deleting your account deletes all of them.
3. What is sent for scoring
To score an answer, the app sends the following to Groq, a third-party AI inference provider, over an encrypted connection:
- the practice question you were answering;
- the text transcript of your answer;
- measured speech characteristics such as speaking rate and pause pattern.
Your audio is not sent. The transcript, however, contains the words you spoke, so treat it as you would any text you type into an app: avoid saying things in a practice answer that you would not want processed by a third party.
The app asks for your consent before it first sends anything for scoring, and records when you gave it. You can withdraw consent in Settings, after which answers are no longer scored.
4. Account and progress data
If you sign in, we use Firebase (Google) for authentication and to store your data so it is available on your other devices.
| Data | Why | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Name and email address from Sign in with Apple or Google | To identify your account | Firebase Authentication |
| Practice preferences: test type, target band, test date, study commitment, app language | To set up your practice plan | Cloud Firestore |
| Answers: question, transcript, duration, band scores and their written reasons | To show your history and progress | Cloud Firestore |
| Mistakes: the excerpt, the correction, and review scheduling | To let you practise your own recurring errors | Cloud Firestore |
| The date you consented to AI scoring | To record and honour your consent | Cloud Firestore |
| Subscription status | To give you access to paid features | RevenueCat |
| App usage events and an advertising identifier | Analytics and measuring which campaigns bring users | Firebase Analytics |
If you use Sign in with Apple and choose to hide your email address, we receive only Apple's relay address and never your real one.
5. Tracking and advertising
Firebase Analytics collects the device advertising identifier (IDFA). On iOS, this requires your permission through Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt. If you decline, the identifier is not collected. We do not sell your personal data, and we do not show third-party ads inside the app.
6. Who else processes your data
- Google (Firebase) — authentication, database, analytics, remote configuration.
- Groq — AI scoring of your answer transcripts.
- RevenueCat — subscription management.
- Apple — App Store purchases and Sign in with Apple.
These providers process data on our behalf under their own privacy terms. We do not sell your data to anyone.
7. How long we keep it
Your account data is kept while your account exists. Delete your account and it is removed: the app wipes local data, including every recording, and deletes your documents from Firestore. Backups and provider logs may persist for a short period afterwards before rotating out.
8. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export, or delete your personal data, and to withdraw consent. The app gives you the two that matter most directly: withdraw AI consent, and delete your account and all of its data, both from Settings. For anything else, contact us.
9. Children
Bandwise is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, contact us and we will delete it.
10. International transfers
Our providers operate globally, so your data may be processed in countries other than your own, including the United States. Those transfers rely on the safeguards the providers put in place, such as standard contractual clauses.
11. Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what we do with your data, we will update the date at the top and, where the change is significant, tell you in the app.
12. Contact
Questions about this policy or your data: [add your support email]