Privacy Policy
Apollo is a Japanese language-learning application. This policy explains what personal data we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. It applies to the Apollo mobile app, the Apollo web app, and the Apollo backend API.
1. Who is responsible for your data
The controller of your personal data is Burak Ayaz, at Negishi 2-chome, Taito-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
For any privacy question or to exercise your rights, contact privacy@apolloapp.site.
Disclaimer — the postal address above is incomplete. It names a district but no building, so post addressed to it will not reach us. This is deliberate and we would rather say so than leave you to discover it: Apollo is run by one person rather than a company, and a complete address here would be a private home. A complete, deliverable address will be published on this page before Apollo is offered to anyone beyond the closed beta.
Until then, email is the working channel, and we treat it as binding. privacy@apolloapp.site is monitored, and every right and response time described in this policy — access, correction, deletion, export, the 30-day limit in section 8 — applies in full to requests sent there. Nothing in this section reduces what you are entitled to; it only tells you which route actually works.
If you are not willing to accept a controller whose published postal address is incomplete, please do not use Apollo — including during the closed beta. Registering an account, or continuing to use an existing one, means you accept it. If you have already registered and this changes your mind, email privacy@apolloapp.site and we will delete your account and data.
2. What we collect
Account information
- Username and email address.
-
A password verifier. We store an
argon2idhash — never your plaintext password, and we cannot recover it. - Your current study level (Beginner, N5–N1) and account role, plus creation and update timestamps.
- The beta key used to register.
Authentication and session data
- Hashed refresh tokens, with issue, expiry, and revocation timestamps.
- Hashed API tokens and their granted abilities, if you create any.
- Short-lived email-verification and password-reset tokens, stored hashed and deleted once used or expired.
Learning activity
This is the bulk of what Apollo stores, and it is what makes scheduling and progress tracking work:
- Spaced-repetition state and review history per card, including scheduling parameters, timestamps, and outcomes.
- Subject mastery, confidence, focus selections, and track assignments.
- Quiz and lesson attempts, including per-question results and recorded mistakes.
- Book, lesson, and article progress, completions, and takeaways.
- Milestone flags used to remember one-time UI states across devices.
- Which subjects have appeared in your discovery feed.
Content you create
- Notes you write, including their content and revision timestamps.
- Reading stories generated for you, together with the vocabulary they were seeded from.
Preferences
- Your time zone, used to align daily review windows.
- Your daily new-subject limit.
- Whether writing-practice notifications are enabled.
Optional third-party integration
- If — and only if — you choose to connect WaniKani, we store the WaniKani API token you supply so we can sync your progress. You can disconnect it at any time, which deletes the stored token.
Email delivery records
- If an email to your address hard-bounces or you mark one as spam, we record the address and the reason so we stop sending to it. This protects the deliverability of the service for everyone.
Technical and server data
- Edge access logs recorded by our content delivery network: IP address, country, requested path, method, response status, user agent, and timestamp. Session cookies are deliberately excluded from these logs.
- Application logs from the API server: diagnostic records of requests and errors, which may include your account identifier. These do not record your IP address.
Both are used for security, abuse prevention, and debugging, and neither is used to build a profile of you.
3. What we do not collect
We think this is as important as the list above. Apollo contains no analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, no crash-reporting SDK, and no third-party trackers. Specifically, we do not:
- Track you across other apps or websites.
- Collect advertising identifiers (IDFA / AAID).
- Collect precise or coarse location.
- Access your contacts, photos, microphone, or camera.
- Build advertising or marketing profiles.
- Sell or rent personal data. We never have and have no plans to.
On the web, Apollo stores authentication tokens and preferences in your browser's local storage. These are strictly necessary to keep you signed in — they are not used for tracking or analytics, which is why Apollo does not show a cookie consent banner.
4. Why we process it, and on what legal basis
| Purpose | Data used | Legal basis (GDPR Art. 6) |
|---|---|---|
| Create and operate your account | Account information, authentication data | Performance of a contract |
| Deliver lessons, schedule reviews, track progress | Learning activity, preferences, content you create | Performance of a contract |
| Send verification and password-reset emails | Email address | Performance of a contract |
| Keep the service secure and prevent abuse | Server logs, authentication data | Legitimate interests |
| Diagnose faults and improve the beta | Server logs, aggregate learning activity | Legitimate interests |
| Maintain email deliverability | Bounce and complaint records | Legitimate interests |
| Sync your WaniKani progress | WaniKani API token | Consent (you initiate it; withdrawable at any time) |
5. Who we share it with
We use a small number of service providers. They process data on our instructions only, and none of them receive your data for their own marketing.
| Provider | Role | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Web Services | Hosting, database, storage, content delivery | All service data, stored in the Asia Pacific (Tokyo) region |
| Resend | Transactional email delivery | Your email address and the contents of verification and password-reset messages |
| Google (Gemini API) | Generates practice reading stories | No personal data. Requests contain only a target JLPT level and a list of vocabulary words drawn from our own catalogue. No account identifier, email, notes, or progress data is sent. |
| Apple | Beta distribution via TestFlight | Whatever Apple collects to operate TestFlight, under Apple's own privacy policy |
| WaniKani (Tofugu) | Optional progress sync | Only reached if you connect it, using the token you supply |
We may also disclose data where legally required, or to establish or defend legal claims.
6. Where your data is stored
Apollo's production infrastructure runs in Amazon Web Services' Asia Pacific (Tokyo) region. If you access Apollo from the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, your data is transferred to and stored in Japan. Japan has an adequacy decision from the European Commission, meaning it is recognised as providing an equivalent level of data protection, so no additional transfer mechanism is required.
7. How long we keep it
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Account and learning data | Until you delete your account, or until the closed beta ends and the environment is decommissioned |
| Refresh and API tokens | Until expiry, revocation, or account deletion |
| Email verification and password-reset tokens | Until used or expired, then deleted |
| Edge access logs (including IP address) | 90 days, then automatically deleted |
| Application logs | 14 days, then automatically deleted |
| Bounce and complaint records | Retained after account deletion, because their purpose is to prevent us from emailing an address that should not be emailed |
8. Your rights
If you are in the EEA or UK, you have the right to access your data, correct it, delete it, receive a portable copy, restrict or object to certain processing, and withdraw consent where processing is based on consent. Similar rights apply under other privacy laws.
Deleting your account removes your account record, learning history, notes, generated stories, preferences, and any connected WaniKani token. Bounce and complaint records are kept as described above.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority.
9. How we protect your data
- All traffic is encrypted in transit over HTTPS, with HSTS enabled.
- Passwords are hashed with
argon2id. - Refresh tokens, API tokens, and email tokens are stored as hashes, not in a recoverable form.
- The application server is not publicly reachable; it is served through a private origin behind our content delivery network.
- Storage is encrypted at rest, and secrets are held in a managed secret store.
No system is perfectly secure. If you believe you have found a vulnerability, please report it to security@apolloapp.site.
10. Children
Apollo is not directed at children. You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has registered, contact privacy@apolloapp.site and we will delete the account.
11. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as Apollo develops. When we make a material change we will update the "last updated" date above and, for significant changes affecting how we use your data, notify you by email.
12. Contact
Burak Ayaz
Negishi 2-chome, Taito-ku, Tokyo, Japan
privacy@apolloapp.site
The postal address is incomplete and not deliverable during the closed beta — use email. See the disclaimer in section 1.