Privacy policy

Effective 28 October 2026.

Who this is for

Brave Words is a speech and language practice app for iPad, made for a parent or carer to use with their child. This policy explains what the app keeps, where it keeps it, and what you can do about it.

The app has no accounts, ads, analytics, tracking, or in-app purchases, and it does not make internet requests of its own. It is released for iPad (iOS) only.

What the app keeps on this iPad

For each child you add: the first name or nickname you type, avatar choices, an optional profile photo, lesson progress and scores, stars and stickers, time played, the therapist goals and notes you enter, any skill requests you write, and your settings.

Mic Check: for each test try, the target word, the outcome and timings. What the recogniser heard is kept only while “Keep what he said for the therapist report” is on, and is removed after 14 days (see “Keeping and erasing”).

A private vocabulary model (if “Teach the recogniser the lesson words” is on): built on this iPad from the app’s lesson sentences, story names, your therapist goal sentences and your child’s name, so the recogniser hears them better.

Speech and audio

Your child’s answers are recognised by Apple’s speech recogniser running on the iPad. The app requires on-device recognition; if the iPad cannot recognise speech on the device, the microphone stays off.

Audio is not saved. The optional “hear yourself” playback keeps only the last attempt, in memory, and discards it.

The text of what your child said is kept only if you switch on “Keep what he said for the therapist report” (Settings), and is removed after 30 days; switching it off forgets the text already kept. Scores are kept either way.

How it is protected

Saved data is encrypted with a key held in this iPad’s keychain. The grown-up area, the camera, sharing, deleting and outside links are behind a grown-up PIN, which locks again after 5 minutes without use or when the app is closed.

No protection is perfect: someone who can unlock the iPad and knows the grown-up PIN can see everything in the grown-up area.

Backups

The app’s saved data (encrypted) is part of normal iPad backups. Its key can move to a new iPad only inside an encrypted backup — iCloud Backup or an encrypted computer backup — so restoring one of those to a new iPad brings progress back. (If this iPad’s key can’t be prepared for that — possible after updating from an early version — Grown-ups → Settings says so and the app keeps trying.) From an unencrypted computer backup, progress can be restored only to the same iPad.

Profile photos and the vocabulary model are left out of backups. The grown-up PIN can’t be restored to a different iPad (a new iPad sets a new PIN).

Sharing — only when you choose

Nothing is sent anywhere unless a grown-up chooses to share it, through the iPad’s share sheet or Mail:

• The therapist report (PDF): your child’s name, progress and, if transcripts are on, quotes of what they said.
• The Mic Check log: targets, outcomes, timings and, if transcripts are on, what was heard.
• A skill request to the developers: the goal wording and your note, exactly as you typed them, plus the names of the closest lessons and the app version. If you typed a name or other personal details, they will be included — check before sending.

Once shared, a copy is outside the app: the app cannot erase it, and the person or service you shared it with handles it under their own terms.

Diagnostics

The app does not collect crash reports or usage data. If you have turned on sharing of analytics with app developers in the iPad’s Settings, Apple may pass crash reports to the developer; Apple’s privacy policy covers those reports.

Keeping and erasing

Time limits are applied when the app is used: text older than the limit is removed the next time the app runs.

If saved data ever fails to load, the app keeps a copy for recovery (shown on the recovery screen) for up to 30 days; that copy holds everything that was saved, transcripts included.

Grown-ups → Settings offers “Erase progress” (progress and Mic Check trials of the child playing now), “Remove” (one child, with their photo, Mic Check trials and — for the child playing now — the vocabulary model) and “Erase everything” (all children, photos, the vocabulary model and leftover report files). Each of these also deletes any recovery copies, which hold the whole family’s data. If a step cannot be completed, the app says which; recovery copies it could not delete are retried each time the app starts, with a notice in Grown-ups → Settings while any remain.

Erasing cannot reach copies outside the app: reports or logs you have already shared, and iPad backups made earlier (they keep their copy until they are replaced or deleted).

Deleting the app removes its saved data from this iPad. The iPad may keep the grown-up PIN and the data key in its keychain; without the data they open nothing. “Erase everything” does not change the grown-up PIN.

Children

The app is meant to be set up and supervised by a parent or carer. It does not ask children for personal information, and what it keeps stays on this iPad under the grown-up’s control.

Changes

A changed policy comes with an app update, and the date at the top changes.