Privacy Policy
The short version. InKontext is a small, invite-only app for learning languages from real videos and texts. It keeps your account and your learning progress (saved words, grades, where you stopped) so it can show them back to you. Nothing is sold, nothing is used for advertising, and there is no tracking. Write to the address below to get a copy of your data or to have it deleted.
1. Who is responsible
InKontext (inkontext.app) is run by Maarten Wiersma, an individual, not a company. For anything about your data, write to maartenfw@googlemail.com.
2. What the app stores
Your account: your email address, the account ID Google sends when you sign in, your first name as Google gives it, when the account was created and when you last signed in. The app never sees or stores a password.
Your learning progress:
- the lessons you added to your list, when you last opened each one, and where you stopped (the playback time and the place in the text)
- words and sentences you save to your vocab trainer, and every review of them
- the grades you give yourself in Back-translate and Speak mode, and how difficult you found a lesson
- sentences you mark as favourites, and how long you listened or read per language and day
- your settings, such as which variety of a language you learn and how the player behaves
Not stored: your voice. In Speak mode the recording stays in your browser, is played back to you, and is gone when you leave the page. It is never uploaded.
Technical data: like any website, the server logs each request: your IP address, the time, and the page or action requested. One cookie keeps you signed in (section 8).
3. Why, and on what legal basis
- Running the app for you — showing your lessons, saved words and progress: the agreement between us (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).
- Keeping it safe and working — backups, security, fixing errors: legitimate interest in not losing your data and keeping the service secure (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
Your data is not used for advertising, not sold, not used to train AI models, and not combined with data about you from anywhere else.
4. Where it is stored
The app runs on a server in Frankfurt, Germany, rented from Fly.io. All traffic is encrypted (HTTPS). Every night a backup copy of the learners' data is made on that server, and a copy of each backup is also kept on the operator's own computer, so the data survives if the server is lost. The operator has technical access to the data, as anyone running a server does, and looks at it only to fix a problem or when you ask.
5. Who else is involved
Nobody receives your data to use for their own purposes, except where you load something from them directly (YouTube, Wikimedia), as explained here:
| Provider | What for | What they get |
|---|---|---|
| Fly.io, Inc. | Hosting the app and its data (Frankfurt) | Everything the app stores, and the server logs |
| Signing in with your Google account | That you signed in to this app; the app receives your email, name and account ID | |
| YouTube (Google) | Playing a lesson's video, and the lesson pictures in the catalog | When a video lesson or the catalog opens, your browser loads them from YouTube, which receives your IP address and browser details and may set its own cookies, under Google's privacy policy |
| Wikimedia Foundation | The 🔊 recordings of words, by real speakers | When you press 🔊, your browser loads the recording from Wikimedia Commons, which receives your IP address |
| jsDelivr | Flag pictures on Windows only (Windows has no flag emoji) | Your IP address when a page loads them |
| Cloudflare, Inc. | The domain's name records only | Nothing from the app — traffic goes straight to the server |
Fly.io and Google are US companies. Your stored data stays in the EU (Frankfurt), but these providers may access it from elsewhere; such transfers rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or the EU's standard contractual clauses.
6. How long it is kept
Your account and progress are kept as long as you have an account. Backups are made every night at 02:00 UTC and kept on a rolling schedule — every copy of the last 30 days, one per week for 12 weeks, one per month for 6 months — then deleted automatically, on the server and on the operator's computer alike. Server logs are kept by the hosting provider for a short period.
When you delete your account (section 7), the account and all your data are removed from the app straight away. Older nightly backup copies still contain them until they roll out under that schedule (at most about 6 months). They are never restored to bring an account back.
7. Your rights
You have the right to access your data, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict or object to its processing, and to receive it in a portable format. Your saved words, grades and settings are visible and editable in the app. To delete your account and all your data yourself: ⋯ menu → Settings → Delete my account (you confirm by typing DELETE). For a copy of everything, or anything else, write to maartenfw@googlemail.com — you will get an answer within one month.
8. Cookies and storage on your device
The app sets one cookie, which keeps you signed in for up to 30 days. It is strictly necessary, so there is no cookie banner. There are no advertising or analytics cookies. Your browser also keeps a few display preferences on your own device (for example the list view, the text size or the filters you chose). YouTube may set its own cookies when its player loads (section 5).
9. Security
Accounts are invite-only and sign in through Google, so there are no passwords to steal. Each learner sees only their own progress. All traffic is encrypted and backups are checked every night. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach ever affected your data, you would be told without undue delay.
10. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes in a way that matters, you will be told in the app or by email before the change takes effect. The date at the top always shows the current version.