Privacy Policy

Last updated: 4 November 2026

This policy explains what the Tacy app and the tacyapp.com website collect, why, who else handles it, how long we keep it, and what you can do about it. We wrote it in plain English. If anything is unclear, email [email protected].

The short version

• No ads and no tracking. We don't sell your data or share it for advertising. The app has no analytics, advertising or crash-reporting tools from other companies.
• You can learn as a guest. We only ask for your email if you choose to sign in.
• Speaking practice and AI help use two outside services: Fish Audio for speech and Alibaba Cloud for text. Each one is off until you allow it, and lessons work without them. Read what each service does with your data before you turn it on (see below).
• We delete our copy of your recordings within 24 hours; Fish Audio may keep its own. We clear messages you paste into the message helper when you finish, within 24 hours at the latest.
• You can export your data or delete your account in the app at any time, as a guest or signed in.

Who we are

Tacy is made and published by Qu Taotao, an individual developer based in mainland China. There is no company behind it. Qu Taotao decides how your personal data is used (the "controller") and is the person you deal with for any privacy question.

Contact: [email protected]. Our postal address is in the trader details on Tacy's App Store page in EU storefronts, and we'll send it to you on request.

Tacy is for adults. You must be 18 or older to use it.

What we collect in the app

When you start

The app creates a guest account so it can save your progress. This account is a random ID, not linked to your name or phone number. We also store:

• That you confirmed you are 18 or older. We don't ask for your birth date.
• Your app language and, if you choose to tell us, your native language.
• Your learning settings, such as the skills you want to practise, your role in business, and display options like pinyin and tone colours.

As a guest, your account is tied to this iPhone. It stays available as long as you keep using Tacy at least once every 400 days. If you don't open Tacy for 400 days, or you delete the app, the guest account can't be reached again; we delete an unreachable guest account after 400 days without use. Sign in with an email if you want to keep your progress across devices. Purchases are different: Restore purchases always brings them back (see Purchases).

If you sign in

If you sign in to keep your progress on more than one device, we collect your email address. We send you a 6-digit sign-in code by email. We store the code and your sign-in sessions only in a scrambled (hashed) form.

While you learn

To show your progress and choose what to review, we store your learning record: lessons you finish, your answers, levels for each skill, phrases you save, and review history. We also count how much of your daily AI allowance you use, and record when you last used Tacy, so we know when a guest account can no longer be reached.

Tacy sets your lesson levels and review plan automatically from your answers. This only shapes your learning path; we make no automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.

Speaking practice (only if you allow it)

The app uses the microphone only when you tap Record. It never records in the background.

• Your recording goes to our server and then to Fish Audio, which turns it into text. You then see the text and confirm or correct it.
• We keep the recording in private storage and delete it within 24 hours. If you record again or cancel, the app deletes the earlier recording straight away.
• The text you confirm becomes part of your learning record. In practice chats it becomes your line in the conversation (see below).

Fish Audio is run by Hanabi AI Inc. in the United States. Its own terms say it may keep recordings for as long as it needs them and may use them to develop and improve its AI models. Our deletion within 24 hours doesn't reach copies Fish Audio keeps, and Fish Audio hasn't signed data protection terms with us. That's why speech checks stay off until you agree, after the app tells you this. If you'd rather not, leave speech checks off and type your answers instead; every lesson still works.

AI help (only if you allow it)

These features send the text you type, paste or confirm to Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, which runs the AI model that writes the replies. Our contract is with Tongyi Yunqi (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd., an Alibaba Cloud company in mainland China, under Chinese law. The text is processed in Alibaba Cloud's Singapore region, on servers outside mainland China. Alibaba Cloud doesn't use it to train models. It hasn't published how long it keeps requests, and it doesn't offer the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses. That's why AI help stays off until you agree, after the app tells you this.

Don't paste passwords, bank details, other people's personal details or confidential business information into the message helper or chats.

You can turn speech checks and AI help on or off at any time in You › Settings & privacy. Turning them off stops anything new being sent. It doesn't delete what you already have; to do that, delete your account.

Purchases

Apple handles all payments. We never see your card or bank details. When you buy, the app gives Apple your Tacy account ID with the purchase, and Apple tells our server which product you bought, transaction IDs, purchase and expiry dates, and whether it renewed or was refunded.

That's how Restore purchases works: with the same Apple ID, it moves your purchases to the Tacy account you're using now, for example after you reinstall, change iPhone or delete your account. The one exception is a purchase that belongs to another Tacy account that has an email; to use it, sign in with that email.

How you found Tacy

To understand whether Tacy is working, we keep simple statistics: when you finished setting up, your app language, the store you installed from and, if you came from one of our ads, the campaign label. We delete campaign labels after 30 days. Reports only ever show totals, never individual people.

Security

To stop abuse, such as someone trying many sign-in codes, we keep short-lived counters keyed on a scrambled form of your IP address, email or session. We delete them within 24 hours. Our web server doesn't keep access logs, so it doesn't store IP addresses. Server logs don't contain your messages, recordings or sign-in codes. They are overwritten automatically as new logs come in, and system logs are deleted after 30 days.

What we don't collect

We don't collect your location, contacts, photos, camera, device ID, advertising ID or browsing history. Reminders are scheduled on your iPhone itself, so we don't collect a push notification token.

App updates

When the app starts, it asks Expo's update service whether a newer version of the app's code is available. The request carries your IP address, the app version, the platform, a random ID created when you installed the app and, if the app failed to start last time, the error message. It doesn't include your Tacy account or anything you wrote or said.

Emailing us

If you email [email protected], we use your address and message only to answer you. Cloudflare forwards our support address to a Gmail mailbox, so Google also handles these emails under its own terms. We keep support emails only as long as we need them to handle your request and any follow-up.

The website

tacyapp.com uses no cookies, no analytics and no third-party scripts or fonts. Cloudflare hosts it and, like any host, briefly processes your IP address to deliver the pages and protect the site.

Before the app is available, the site may offer a "get notified" form. If you use it, we store your email, the language of the page, which consent text you agreed to, the campaign labels in the link you used (if any), when you signed up, when we emailed you, and a scrambled copy of your private removal link. We use your email only to tell you when Tacy launches and to send at most one short email asking about your learning needs. It doesn't create an app account and it isn't a newsletter.

We delete your sign-up after we have sent both emails, or 120 days after you signed up, whichever comes first. You can delete it right away with the removal link on the confirmation screen. If you lose the link, email [email protected] from the address you signed up with.

Do you have to give us data?

No. Everything is optional, but some features need some data. Without an email you can't sync across devices. Without allowing speech checks or AI help, those features stay off and the lessons work as normal.

Why we use your data (legal bases)

If you live in the European Economic Area, the UK or another place with similar laws, we rely on these legal bases:

• To provide Tacy (performance of a contract): your account, learning record, settings, sign-in and purchases.
• Your consent: speech checks, AI help and the website sign-up form. You can withdraw consent at any time; this doesn't affect what happened before.
• Our legitimate interests: keeping Tacy secure, preventing abuse and duplicate charges, keeping purchase records after deletion (see below), counting totals to improve Tacy, delivering app updates and recovering from failed starts, hosting the website, and answering your emails. We keep this to the minimum, and you can object by emailing us.

Who else handles your data

Amazon Web Services, Cloudflare, Resend and Expo act only on our instructions, under data processing terms. Alibaba Cloud promises in its service terms to process the text only on our instructions, but offers no GDPR data processing terms. Apple and Google handle data as independent companies under their own privacy policies. Fish Audio uses recordings under its own terms, as explained above. We don't use your recordings or text to train AI models.

International transfers

Your data is stored in Australia and processed in the other countries listed above. The developer runs Tacy from mainland China and may access the server from there to maintain the service and answer support requests. These countries may not have the same data protection laws as yours.

For Amazon Web Services, Cloudflare, Resend and Expo, we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses built into their data processing terms, with the UK addendum where they include it. Email us for a copy of these safeguards. Fish Audio and Alibaba Cloud offer no such terms, so we send recordings and AI-help text to them only with your explicit consent, after telling you about these risks.

How long we keep data

Deleting your account

Go to You › Settings & privacy › Delete account. This works for guests too. When you confirm:

• You are signed out on all devices straight away.
• Your account, learning record, chats, saved phrases and recordings are deleted from our live systems within 24 hours.
• Copies in our encrypted backups disappear within 30 days.
• For settlement and to prevent duplicate charges, we keep minimal purchase records (transaction IDs, product, dates) without your name or email for up to 180 days, then delete them. We also keep a scrambled record that a deletion was requested for 30 days, so a repeated request is handled safely.

Your purchases stay with your Apple ID. If you come back later, Restore purchases attaches them to your new account.

Deleting your account doesn't cancel an App Store subscription. Cancel it in your Apple ID settings. You don't have to cancel first to delete your account.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or receive a copy of your data, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to withdraw consent.

• Export: You › Settings & privacy › Export my data gives you a copy of your account, settings, progress, phrases, chats, transcripts and purchases as a file.
• Delete: see above.
• Anything else: email [email protected]. We may ask you to confirm the request from your account email. We reply within one month.

You can also complain to the data protection authority where you live or work.

US state privacy rights

If you live in a US state with a consumer privacy law, such as California, you can ask what personal information we hold about you and ask us to delete or correct it. Use the in-app tools or email us. We don't sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we don't use sensitive personal information to infer things about you. We won't treat you differently for using these rights.

Children

Tacy isn't meant for anyone under 18, and the app won't create an account without an 18+ confirmation. If you believe someone under 18 has given us personal data, tell us and we'll delete it.

Security

Connections to Tacy are encrypted. Recordings sit in private storage that only our server can read, and the server hands them only to your own account. Sign-in codes and sessions are stored hashed. Backups are encrypted. No system is perfectly secure, but we keep what we collect small and delete it on schedule.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top. If a change affects how we use data you have already given us, we'll tell you in the app before it takes effect and, where needed, ask for your consent again.