Privacy policy

Spelling Bees ("we", "us", "our") is a UK-based spelling-practice application for children in Years 3–6, part of the Tweenage family of apps. If you have any questions about this policy or your data, contact us at hello@answerthequestion.co.uk.

Rebecca Everton, a sole trader trading as Tweenage, is the data controller. ICO registration ZC120037. You can write to the controller at hello@answerthequestion.co.uk.

We collect the minimum data needed to provide the service:

• Parent account: email address and a hashed password (via Supabase Auth)
• Child profile: an avatar character chosen from a fixed list of six (Cat, Owl, Robot, Unicorn, Dragon, Fox) and a colour. The character's label, for example "Owl", is used as the display name in the App. We do not collect your child's name, surname, date of birth, address or school
• Practice data: spelling attempts, word-mastery stars, streaks, scores, and timestamps, so the App can schedule reviews and show how it is going
• Optional setup data: an 11+ exam date (if you choose to enter one) and any school spelling words you type in for your child to practise
• Book Bees words: if your child uses Book Bees, the words they look up and save, so their list is there next time (see section 3). Your child can also type an optional book title (up to 80 characters) to say where the word came from. The book title is stored with the saved word and is never sent to Anthropic
• Payment data: processed securely by LemonSqueezy. We never see or store your card details

One feature uses AI: Book Bees, where a child types a word they have found in a book and gets back a card explaining what it means. To write that card we send the word to Anthropic (the Claude API). Nothing else in the App uses AI.

• What is sent: the single word your child typed, and nothing else. Not their name, not their age, not their practice history, not your account details. The word is checked first and must be one plain word (letters, hyphens or apostrophes, up to 30 characters).
• Please note: the box only accepts single words found in an English dictionary. Anything else, including names, places and brands, is refused on our server: it is never sent on to Anthropic, never stored, and never saved to your child’s words. A word that is also a name, such as Rose or Grace, is treated as the ordinary word and the card explains that word, not a person.
• What comes back is checked before your child sees it, and cards are stored for up to 180 days so the same word does not need looking up twice.
• Not used for training: Anthropic's API terms state that data sent through the API is not used to train their models.
• You can avoid it entirely: Book Bees is the only place this happens. If nobody in your family uses it, no word ever leaves our systems.

Everywhere else, the App is plain software. There is no profiling, no automated decision-making that affects your child, and no behavioural advertising. The spaced-repetition schedule that decides which words come round again is a simple, transparent algorithm running on the curated word list, not AI.

The App can read words aloud (text-to-speech) and, if you switch on the optional "spell aloud" mode in Settings, listen to your child spelling a word using the device microphone. Both features use your browser's built-in Web Speech API.

• The microphone is used only when you have explicitly enabled "spell aloud", and only during a practice or test word.
• We do not record, store, or transmit any audio ourselves.
• Depending on your browser, speech may be processed on-device or sent by the browser/operating-system vendor (for example Google in Chrome, or Apple in Safari) to their own speech services to convert it to text. That processing is governed by your browser/OS provider's privacy policy, not ours.
• If you would rather no audio leaves the device, leave "spell aloud" off. The App works fully with the keyboard.

Under the UK GDPR and the Data Use and Access Act 2025, we rely on:

• Contract: to deliver the service you have purchased (our primary basis)
• Legitimate interest: to keep the App working, provide support, and send essential service emails

We do not rely on consent for core service delivery. We do not send advertising or promotional email unless you have separately opted in (for example, by requesting the free word list).

Practice reminders. If you have bought Spelling Bees, we may send you a small number of reminder emails about your own child’s practice: for example, a Monday note if this week’s school spellings have not been added yet, or a reminder after a few quiet days. These relate to the service you have paid for, so we send them on the basis of legitimate interest under the soft opt-in in regulation 22(3) of PECR. To decide whether one is relevant we look only at whether a list has been added and whether a session has happened, never at what your child typed or got wrong. Every one of these emails carries a one-click link to stop them with no login, and you can switch each type off at any time in Settings → Email updates. We never send more than one in a day, and comeback reminders stop on their own if they are ignored twice.

The App is used by children aged 7–11, so the UK ICO's Age Appropriate Design Code (the "Children's Code") applies. We have designed the App to comply with it:

• Parent-managed accounts: the account holder is always a parent or guardian. Children do not create accounts, give an email address, or submit personal data directly.
• Data minimisation: a child profile is an avatar character picked from a fixed list. Its label (for example "Owl") is the display name. We do not collect a name, surname, date of birth, school, address or photograph.
• High privacy by default: all child data is private to the parent account. Database row-level security ensures one family can never see another's data.
• No profiling or manipulation: no behavioural advertising and no automated decisions affecting the child. The one place AI is used, Book Bees, only writes an explanation of a word; it makes no judgement about your child and is described in full in section 3.
• No dark patterns: streaks and stars exist to encourage a healthy practice habit, not fabricated scarcity or autoplay designed to extend screen time.
• No geolocation and no child-to-child contact. There are no leaderboards, messaging, forums, or shared content between users.
• Parental controls: a parent can view all practice data, change settings, and remove a child's profile and everything saved with it (practice history, settings, school lists and saved words) from Settings → Your data. That deletion is immediate and cannot be undone.

If you have any concerns about how your child's data is handled, please contact us at hello@answerthequestion.co.uk.

Data is stored securely in Supabase, which uses PostgreSQL databases hosted within the EU (Frankfurt, Germany). All data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest. Row-level security ensures each parent can only access their own family's data.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your data. We share data only with the processors that run the service:

• Supabase: database hosting and authentication
• Vercel: application hosting and privacy-friendly, cookieless usage analytics (aggregate only)
• LemonSqueezy: payment processing (they have their own privacy policy)
• Resend: sending our emails: account confirmation, receipt, password reset, welcome, and the practice reminders described in section 5. To address a reminder to the right child, these emails use the label of the avatar your child chose (for example "Owl") alongside your email address. No child name is collected, so none is sent.
• Anthropic: writing the meaning card in Book Bees, and only the single word your child typed, as described in section 3. If your family does not use Book Bees, nothing is ever sent to Anthropic.

We do not use Google Analytics, advertising networks, retargeting, or cross-site tracking. Data is not transferred outside the EU/UK except where a processor relies on appropriate safeguards (Standard Contractual Clauses or a UK adequacy decision).

We use only an essential Supabase session token (required to keep you signed in; it cannot be disabled while you use the App) and Vercel's cookieless analytics, which counts page views in aggregate and sets no tracking cookie. We use no advertising, retargeting, or cross-site tracking cookies. Affiliate links on the Books we love page (Amazon, Bookshop.org) may set their own cookies on those sites if you click through; that is governed by their policies, not ours.

We keep your data for as long as your account is active. Two ways to end that:

• Remove one child: Settings → Your data. That child's profile and everything saved with it is deleted straight away.
• Delete the whole account: also in Settings → Your data. Type the confirmation phrase and your account, every child profile and all practice data are permanently removed straight away. If you cannot sign in, email us from the address on the account and we will do it within 30 days and confirm when it's done.

Two details about Book Bees (section 3). Your child's own saved list of words lives with their profile and is deleted with it. The meaning cards themselves sit in a shared cache keyed by the word, so that the same word is never looked up twice for anyone, and are kept for up to 180 days. That cache is a dictionary of words, not a record of your child; it notes which account first requested a word so the lookup can't be run twice at once.

Payment records are kept longer where UK tax law requires it.

Under UK GDPR you have the right to:

• Access: request a copy of your personal data
• Rectification: correct any inaccurate data
• Erasure: request deletion ("right to be forgotten")
• Portability: receive your data in a machine-readable format
• Object: object to processing based on legitimate interest

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@answerthequestion.co.uk. We will respond within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with how we handle your data, contact us first at hello@answerthequestion.co.uk and we will work to resolve it. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO): ico.org.uk.

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make significant changes, we will notify you by email. The "last updated" date at the top of this page always reflects the most recent version.