Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Fonetic English Pty Ltd (ABN 69 676 819 104) (FEPL, we, us) handles personal information of people who use the Fonetic English website and services (FE). We are an Australian company based in Sydney. We store and process information in Australia.

What we collect

We collect the minimum we need to provide FE and improve it. The main categories are:

• Account information such as your name or nickname, email address, country, and password.
• Information about the learner — covering matters such as age, sex, native language, educational history in their native language and in English, current English level, learning goals, any reading difficulties or conditions, and other information the parent or learner chooses to share or that helps us teach effectively.
• Usage information generated as you or your child uses FE — which exercises you attempt, whether you get answers right or wrong, how long you take, and similar data that helps the system teach better and improve over time.
• Support and communications information — emails you send us, feedback and survey responses, and your interactions with our support team.
• Inferred or derived information — analyses we produce about a learner’s progress, gaps, needs, and suggested next steps, based on usage data and the information you have shared with us.
• Technical information such as your IP address, browser, and usage logs.

Fonetic English is a research-led company. As FE develops, we may collect additional information within these categories to help us teach more effectively and improve the system. We will update this Privacy Policy if we start collecting a genuinely new category of personal information.

Payment information is handled by our third-party payment provider (for example Stripe or Wallex), not by FEPL. We do not hold your full payment details — we see only the information we need to manage your subscription, such as whether a payment succeeded.

From tutors we also collect first and last name, country, the conferencing tool they use, and — if they will teach students under 18 — evidence of a current child-safety background check such as a Working With Children Check.

We hold very little personal information about children. We do not collect email addresses, phone numbers, or home addresses for children under 18. Children cannot sign up for their own account; a parent or guardian is always the account-holder.

How we use it

We use personal information to:

• Provide FE and personalise it for each learner.
• Manage accounts and process transactions through our payment provider.
• Tell you about products or services we think may help the learner. Some of these may involve an additional charge. If we know a learner has a specific need and we have something that might help, we think you should know.
• Send general marketing communications about FE. You can unsubscribe from marketing at any time through the link in every marketing email.
• Improve FE, including through research into how people learn English and what works best.
• Respond to safeguarding concerns and cooperate with authorities where required by law.

How we share it

We do not sell personal information. We share it only with:

• Service providers who help us run FE — our hosting provider (Microsoft Azure, in Australia), our payment provider, Google Analytics, and email providers.
• Tutors, where you have engaged a tutor for a student — the tutor sees the student’s profile for teaching purposes.
• Authorities, where required by law or to protect a child.

We may also share anonymised data — data with no names or other personal identifiers attached — with bona fide researchers studying reading and language learning, and with other companies in the FEPL corporate group. Anonymised data cannot be traced back to you.

Information about children

Children’s safety and privacy matters more to us than anything else we do. We do not collect contact details for any child. All communications about a child’s learning go to the parent.

Parents can edit the information they have given us about their child — nickname, age, level, learning goal, and so on — through their account. Usage data, such as exercise results and what their child has done in FE, is a record of what actually happened and cannot be edited. If a parent wants to delete their child’s account, they can do so. When an account is deleted, we remove the link between the child and their data. After that, the data cannot be traced back to the child or to anyone.

Where a tutor teaches a child using FE, the tutor must comply with our Tutor Code of Conduct, which includes holding a current child-safety background check, recording lessons, and ensuring a parent is present. The tutor sees the child’s profile only for teaching purposes.

If a parent has told us about a reading difficulty or condition, we treat that information with extra care. We use it only to help us tailor FE to the child.

How long we keep your information

We keep account information for as long as your account is open.

When you delete an account, we remove the link between your name and the data generated while you used FE. Once that link is removed, the data cannot be traced back to you and we cannot connect it to you even if we wanted to. We may use this data in anonymous form to improve FE.

For adult learners and tutors, we keep account and transaction records for 7 years after the account closes, to meet Australian tax and record-keeping obligations.

Your rights

You can ask us to:

• Tell you what information we hold about you.
• Correct information you have given us that is wrong.
• Delete your account.
• Stop sending you marketing emails (or click unsubscribe in any marketing email).

Email privacy@foneticenglish.com for any of these. We will respond within a reasonable time.

In Australia, you can complain about how we handle personal information to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (www.oaic.gov.au).

Security

We host FE on Microsoft Azure in Australia and use Microsoft security services to protect our systems. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access within FEPL is limited to staff who need it. No system is perfectly secure; if we become aware of a data breach affecting your information, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by law.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies to keep you logged in, remember your preferences, and help us understand how FE is used (through Google Analytics). You can control cookies through your browser settings.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The current version is always at [URL]. We will give reasonable notice of material changes.

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