Privacy

Laonei has no accounts and no login. There is no user record anywhere, because there is nobody to have a record of. This page says what happens to the things you hand it anyway — a sentence, a photograph, sometimes a location.

What stays on your phone

Your translation history, saved phrases, flashcards and settings are stored in your browser on your own device and are never uploaded. Clearing them in the app, or clearing your browser data, deletes them permanently — there is no copy for us to delete.

What is sent, and where

• What you say or type. Sent to our server, then to Anthropic, which produces the translation or the answer. Used for that request and not stored afterwards.
• Speech. Audio you record is sent to ElevenLabs to be turned into text, and the text of a reply is sent there to be spoken aloud. Not stored afterwards.
• Photographs. A photo you take or choose is sent to our server and read by Anthropic. It is not saved to disk and not kept after the answer is returned.
• Location, only if you tap for it. Never requested on opening the app. When you press “Use where I am” or search for something nearby, one reading is taken, rounded to about a hundred metres, and used to ask OpenStreetMap what is there. It is not stored and not tracked, and every other part of the app works if you refuse.

Requests are sent over an encrypted connection. We do not sell anything to anybody, and none of the above is used to build a profile of you.

What our server keeps

One thing: a count of how many devices have opened the app. Your browser makes up a random id for itself, that id is hashed before it touches disk, and what is stored is a daily total. It identifies a browser rather than a person, and it cannot be turned back into one.

And one thing more, if you type your own lesson topic: the topic itself, such as “getting a bike fixed”, so it can be suggested to other newcomers. Only the words of the topic are kept, only if a lesson was written for it, and only plain words (anything with numbers, addresses or links is thrown away). A topic is shown to anyone else only after three different phones have asked for it. To tell three askers from one, a scrambled fragment of the network address is kept beside it, never the address itself. Picking a lesson from the list keeps nothing.

If you answer the one-time question “how did you hear about Laonei?”, the total for that answer goes up by one. Nothing else is kept with it.

Search results from the map are cached for a day so that the same question asked twice is fast. The cache holds places, not people — a street corner and what is on it.

What there isn’t

• No third-party analytics, no advertising, no tracking pixels, no cookies for tracking.
• No contact list, calendar, or health access. The app never asks.
• No photo library scanning — only the single image you choose in the moment.
• No background location. Nothing runs when the app is closed.

Permissions, and why each is asked for

• Microphone — only while you hold the button, to capture the sentence to translate.
• Camera and photos — only when you choose to photograph or select something to read.
• Location — only when you tap a control that needs it, one reading at a time.

Each can be refused or withdrawn in your phone’s settings, and the rest keeps working.

Children

Laonei is made for adults living, studying or travelling in China. It is not directed at children and collects nothing that could identify one.

Changes, and how to reach us

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Questions, complaints, or a request to remove something: tommyshanahan@gmail.com.