1. The short version
- No account. The app never asks for your name, email, phone number or contacts.
- You agree first. Before your first conversation the app shows who receives your voice and words, and nothing is sent until you tap to agree. You can withdraw in Settings at any time.
- Your voice is not recorded or kept. The microphone is on only during your turn to speak: from when you use a talk button until your turn ends. The sound is streamed to be turned into text, then discarded.
- Your words are not kept. What you say or type, and its translation, are not stored on our servers and are not written into our logs.
- Only simple counts are kept, so everyone gets their free minutes fairly: a random ID for your phone (not your name), the seconds used each day, and a scrambled form of your internet address. On iPhone it also keeps the app's security key record (next point). If part of the app fails, it sends a short error report, never with your words.
- A check that the app is genuine (iPhone). The app proves to our server that it is the real LingoVoice app on a real iPhone, using Apple's App Attest, so nobody can fake phones to take the free minutes. It uses a security key whose secret part never leaves your iPhone, and it never involves your voice or your words.
- No ads, no selling data, no tracking across other apps or websites.
2. What the app collects and why
| Data | When and how | What it is used for |
|---|---|---|
| Your voice | Only during your turn to speak, started with a talk button. It is streamed to our server and on to a speech service. | Turning what you say into text, so it can be translated |
| Words you type | When you type instead of speaking (for a language the app cannot hear yet, or when you choose to type). | Translating them for the other person |
| The text heard, the translation and its voice | Made for each turn and sent back to the phone. | Showing and speaking the translation |
| Both languages, the Arabic dialect if chosen, and who is talking (woman, man or rather not say) | Sent with each conversation. | Translating into the right language and grammar, and choosing a matching voice |
| A random ID made by the app for your phone, and a code our server signs for it | When the app connects. | Counting your free minutes and stopping abuse |
| A security key for the app (iPhone only) | Once per install, the app makes a key in your iPhone's secure chip and asks Apple to certify it for LingoVoice. Our server receives the key's public part, its ID and Apple's certificate. At the start of each conversation, the app uses the key to sign a one-time code from our server together with your phone's random ID. | Checking that the app is the genuine LingoVoice app on a real iPhone, to stop fake apps and scripts from using the free minutes |
| Your internet address (IP address) | Seen by our server when the app connects. | Limiting abuse, such as one address creating endless phones or minutes |
| Seconds used each day, number of turns, app version, phone type (iPhone or Android), first and last time seen | With each turn and connection. | Free minutes, fair use, keeping the app working, and seeing how many people come back |
| Error reports: the error's name and message and where in the app's code it happened | When part of the app fails on the phone. They never contain your words, your phone's ID or your internet address. | Finding and fixing faults |
The app does not access your contacts, photos, location or files, and it has no advertising or analytics tools inside it.
3. Who hears, translates and speaks your words
To hear, translate and speak, our server passes your voice or text to one of these companies for that step only. Which one depends on the languages you choose:
- Google (Google Cloud Speech-to-Text, Translation and Text-to-Speech): hears most languages, translates, and speaks many languages.
- OpenAI (OpenAI API): translates, always when Arabic is one of the two languages, for some other languages, and as a backup when another translator is slow; it also speaks Arabic and a few other languages.
- Microsoft (Azure AI Speech and Azure Translator): hears and speaks some languages, and translates when another service is unavailable.
- ElevenLabs (speech-to-text): hears a few languages, such as Kurdish (Kurmanji).
- DeepL: translates between languages it supports, for example English and Chinese.
A few languages, such as Tigrinya, Oromo and Hausa, have no voice yet: their translation is shown as text only.
For some languages with few written resources, the translator also sees a few example sentences from Google's SMOL collection, translated by professional translators and shared by Google under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (huggingface.co/datasets/google/smol). They are stored on our server and contain nothing of yours.
These companies receive only the audio or text needed for the step, never your phone's ID, and our server sends it from its own address, not yours. They process it for us under their data processing terms for business customers, which require them to protect it at least as well as this policy does. For example, OpenAI does not use data sent to its API to train its models, and keeps API request logs for up to 30 days to watch for abuse (OpenAI's "Data controls in the OpenAI platform" page, checked 30 September 2026).
Apple (App Attest, part of iOS) never hears or sees your words. When the app sets up its security key, your iPhone asks Apple to certify it: Apple receives the key's public part and a one-way scrambled code (a hash), never your phone's random ID itself, your voice or your words.
4. What we keep, and for how long
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Your voice, the text heard, what you type, translations and voices | Not stored. They pass through our server's memory during the turn. To answer a repeated phrase faster, a translation can stay in our server's memory for up to 10 minutes; it is never written to disk. |
| Your phone's record: its random ID, phone type, app version, first and last time seen, and a scrambled (keyed hash) form of the internet address it first connected from | While the app is offered, or until you ask us to delete it |
| Your phone's security key record (iPhone only): the key's ID and public part, which Apple service certified it, a counter that only goes up, and when it was set up and last used, linked to your phone's random ID. Your phone's record also notes that it has a certified key. | While the app is offered, or until you ask us to delete it |
| Seconds used and number of turns per day, per phone | While the app is offered, or until you ask us to delete it |
| New phones and seconds used per day, per scrambled internet address | While the app is offered |
| Service usage records: for each hearing, translation or voice step, which service did it, the two languages, its size (seconds of audio or number of characters) and its cost. No words, and not linked to your phone's ID. | Kept for our accounts and cost checks |
| Our server's technical logs: numbers only, such as the languages of a turn and how long each step took, and the error reports the app sends when part of it fails on the phone (see section 2). Never your words, your phone's ID or your internet address. | Up to 7 days |
| Your internet address as it is (not scrambled) | Only in memory while you are connected, up to 15 minutes in our rate limiter when the app asks for the language list, and in our web server's error log if a connection fails with a server error (kept up to 52 days) |
None of the stored data contains your name, email, phone number or what you said or typed.
5. On your phone
The app stores your choices (both languages, the Arabic dialect, who is talking, the app language), when you agreed to sharing, your phone's random ID and its signed code. On iPhone the ID is kept in the phone's secure storage (Keychain), so reinstalling the app does not reset the day's free minutes. The last translation stays on your phone so you can play it again, until the next one replaces it or you close the conversation. If part of the app fails before it can send the error report, for example when the app closes, the phone keeps that report and sends it with your next conversation, then deletes it. On iPhone, the app's security key is made inside the phone's secure chip (the Secure Enclave) and its secret part never leaves it; the app keeps the key's ID in the phone's secure storage.
6. Your choices: withdrawing consent and deleting your data
- Withdraw consent: in the app, open Settings and tap Withdraw consent. From then on nothing is sent until you agree again. You can also turn off the app's microphone access in your phone's settings, or delete the app.
- Delete your data: email support@lingovoice.ai with your phone's ID, which the app shows in Settings. We delete your phone's record, its daily counts and its security key record within 30 days of your request.
- Your rights: under UK data protection law you can ask for a copy of the data about your phone, ask us to correct or delete it, or object to how we use it. We answer within one month. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).
We use your voice and words to provide the translation you ask for, with your agreement. We keep the counts in section 4 because we have a legitimate interest in sharing free minutes fairly and stopping abuse, and the error reports because we have a legitimate interest in keeping the app working.
7. Sharing from the app
If you tap Share this moment or Tell a friend, your phone's own share sheet opens with a short text and a link to the app. In Two phones, Share the link opens it with the link to the other person's page (section 8). Nothing is sent anywhere unless you choose where to share it.
8. Two phones
Two phones lets each person talk on their own phone. The phone holder shows a code; the other person scans it with their phone's camera, or opens a link the holder shares, and a LingoVoice page opens in their browser, with nothing to install. A code nobody has used stops working after 10 minutes, or as soon as the holder closes it. Once the other person has joined, it works until either of you ends Two phones or leaves the conversation.
On the other person's page, before anything is sent, the page shows who receives their voice and words and asks them to agree. Their voice and typed words then go through the same steps and the same companies as in section 3, are not stored and are not written into our logs. The page has no account, does not ask for a name, email or phone number, and makes no ID for them. Their turns use the phone holder's free minutes. Our server sees their internet address while they are connected and keeps it only as section 4 says for the app; their turns are counted against the phone holder's scrambled address. If the microphone on their page fails to start, the page sends the error's name and message to our technical logs (section 4), never their words or address. While their browser tab is open, the page remembers that they agreed, the language they chose and a code that lets it rejoin the conversation if their screen locks.
9. Children
The app is not intended for children under 13 using it on their own.
10. Changes
If we start sending your voice or words to a new company, or using them in a new way, we will update this page first, change the date below, and the app will ask for your agreement again. Other changes are made on this page, with a new date below.
Last updated: 16 October 2026.
11. Contact
For any privacy question or request:
support@lingovoice.ai
Lingo Service Translations Ltd
Cardiff, United Kingdom