Privacy Policy

Who we are

Zusamo is made by Thompson Projects Ltd, a company registered in Ghana, c/o MEST Incubator, 19 Banana Street, East Legon, Accra. Thompson Projects Ltd decides how your data is used and is responsible for it. Contact: [email protected].

What Zusamo collects

• Your sign-in. You sign in with Apple. Zusamo receives only Apple's stable identifier for your Apple ID. It does not ask Apple for your name or email address. Your first name is kept so your study partner and Sprechpartner can see who is who. Sign-in tokens are stored only as one-way hashes.
• Your learning. Lessons opened, answers, flashcard reviews, the words and phrases you learn or save, mock exam and practice results, your exam date, daily goals and notes you add to cards.
• Tutor conversations. What you write to the in-app tutor, its replies, and the short notes it keeps to remember what you are working on.
• Speaking practice. When you record a speaking task or shadow a sentence, the recording is sent to our server and on to OpenAI to be turned into text. Our server does not keep the audio: it keeps the transcript, the feedback and the score. Your device keeps its own copy so you can play it back.
• Spoken answers to cards. When you say an answer out loud, Apple's speech recognition turns it into text. Where your device supports it, this happens on the device; otherwise Apple processes it.
• Sprechpartner sessions. For a native-speaker partner: their Apple identifier, name and app language. For each session: the booked time, who took part, and notes the partner writes. A partner sees a short summary of your progress (level, chapter, recent words, saved phrases and weak spots), never your test scores or tutor conversations.
• Sprechpartner call recordings. Calls are recorded only after everyone in the call has agreed on screen. Each speaker's audio is recorded separately. Video, if you turn it on, is not recorded. After the call the recordings are transcribed, and the transcript is used to write a recap of the session, with your own sentences next to a better version. A live transcript during the call is written by each speaker's own device. Recordings are available only to the session's learners, through links that expire after 15 minutes, and are deleted 90 days after the call [to confirm: automatic deletion is scheduled].
• Notifications. If you allow notifications, a device token so Apple can deliver reminders and session alerts.
• Technical logs. Our servers keep standard request logs for running and securing the service [to confirm: what is logged and for how long].

What Zusamo does not collect

• No advertising, and no advertising identifiers.
• No analytics or tracking tools, and no tracking across other apps or websites.
• No location, contacts or photos.
• No payment details. Zusamo has no in-app purchases today. If paid plans are added, payment will be handled by Apple or Google, and Zusamo will not see your card details [to confirm: pricing plans].

Why we use it

• To plan your daily study around your exam date and show your progress.
• To give feedback on your writing and speaking, and to run the tutor.
• To let you and your study partner see where each other stands.
• To book, run and recap Sprechpartner sessions.
• To send the reminders you asked for.
• To keep the service working and secure.

We use your data because you asked us to provide the service, and, for call recordings, because everyone in the call agreed. We do not sell your data or use it for advertising.

Who helps run Zusamo

These providers process data on our behalf, only to provide the service:

• Render hosts our server and database [to confirm: region].
• Anthropic (Claude) writes lessons, tutor replies, feedback, session guides and recaps from the learning data each task needs.
• OpenAI turns speech into text and text into speech, and draws word pictures.
• LiveKit carries Sprechpartner calls and records them [to confirm: LiveKit Cloud or self-hosted].
• Google Cloud stores call recordings [to confirm: region].
• Apple handles sign-in, speech recognition and notification delivery.

Anthropic and OpenAI receive this data through their business APIs, whose terms say they do not use it to train their models [to confirm: current terms and retention settings].

Where your data is processed

These providers run servers outside Ghana, for example in the United States or Europe, so your data may be processed there [to confirm: regions]. We use providers with contractual protections for this data.

How long we keep it

• Your account and learning data: for as long as you use Zusamo, until you ask us to delete it.
• Sprechpartner call recordings: 90 days after the call.
• Speaking practice audio: not kept on our server.

Your choices and rights

You can ask us to see, correct, export or delete the data Zusamo keeps about you, or object to how we use it. Write to [email protected] and we will reply within 30 days. Deleting your data removes your progress, conversations, recordings and transcripts. Depending on where you live, laws such as Ghana's Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) or the EU General Data Protection Regulation give you these rights, and you can also complain to your data protection authority.

You can turn off notifications, the microphone or the camera for Zusamo at any time in your device settings. You can leave a Sprechpartner call instead of agreeing to the recording.

Children

Zusamo is meant for adults preparing for the Goethe B1 exam and is not directed at children under 13 [to confirm: minimum age]. If you believe a child has given us data, write to us and we will delete it.

Security

Data travels over encrypted connections. Sign-in tokens, invite codes and link codes are stored only as hashes, so the database alone cannot be used to sign in as anyone. Recordings are reached only through short-lived signed links.

Changes

If we change what Zusamo collects or how it is used, we will update this page and its date before the change takes effect, and tell you in the app if the change is significant.

Contact

Thompson Projects Ltd, c/o MEST Incubator, 19 Banana Street, East Legon, Accra, Ghana. [email protected]