Privacy Policy

01Our promise to families

HarfLand is built for children, so privacy is a design constraint rather than an afterthought. There is no advertising in HarfLand, no third-party ad network, no behavioural profiling and no sale or sharing of personal data.

We only collect what the app genuinely needs to remember your child's progress across devices.

02What we collect

Parent account: your email address and an encrypted password, handled by our authentication provider.

Child profile: a display name (a first name or nickname is enough), an avatar choice and an age band. We do not ask for a child's surname, address, photo, phone number or school.

Learning progress: which letters, words, games and stories have been completed, scores, stars and streaks.

Support messages: if you use the contact form, we store your name, email, topic and message so we can reply.

03What we never collect

No precise location, no contacts, no photo library access, no advertising identifiers, and no microphone recordings stored on our servers — pronunciation practice is processed on the device and discarded.

04Why we process it

To create and secure your account, to save and sync progress, to show the parent dashboard, and to answer support enquiries.

Our lawful bases are performance of our contract with you (running the app you bought) and our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and improving it.

05Children's privacy

Accounts are created and controlled by a parent or guardian. Children cannot make purchases, cannot message anyone, and cannot browse to external content from inside the learning experience.

We design against the UK Age Appropriate Design Code and follow the spirit of COPPA and GDPR-K: data minimisation, no nudge techniques, no dark patterns, and no profiling for marketing.

06Who we share with

Only the infrastructure providers required to run the app — hosting, database and authentication, and our transactional email provider for support replies. They act on our instructions and may not use your data for their own purposes.

App store purchases are handled by Apple or Google; we receive a confirmation of purchase, never your card details.

We will disclose data if legally required, and will tell you unless we are legally prevented from doing so.

07Storage, security & retention

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and access is restricted to the small team that needs it. Database access rules keep each family's data isolated.

We keep account and progress data for as long as your account exists, and delete it within 30 days of a deletion request. Support messages are kept for up to 24 months.

08Your rights

You can access, correct, export or delete your family's data, object to processing, or withdraw consent at any time.

Email hello@harfland.com and we will action verified requests within 30 days. You also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority (in the UK, the ICO).

09Cookies & local storage

We use strictly necessary storage only: a session token to keep you signed in and small local preferences such as sound and text-size settings. No analytics or advertising cookies.

10Contact us

HarfLand privacy team — hello@harfland.com. We answer privacy enquiries within two working days.