Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

• Account data — name and email address (to create and identify your account).
• Profile data — language level, profile photo, and bio (to personalise your experience).
• Learning data — course enrollments, video completion records, quiz scores, IELTS target band, optional exam date, Mistake Notebook entries and improvement status, XP, badges, and streaks (to personalise practice, track your progress, and award achievements).
• Payment confirmation — for Myanmar bank/wallet payments we receive a screenshot of your transfer receipt. For international card payments processed by Paddle, we receive a transaction reference and subscription status only — your card details are handled entirely by Paddle and never reach our servers.
• Audio recordings and transcripts — speaking audio and transcripts may be processed for transcription, feedback, and review. Practice history and results may remain in your account where a tool provides them.
• Writing and image submissions — text and images you submit to practice tools may be processed to provide feedback and saved with your results where the tool supports history.
• Usage data — pages visited, features used, device type, and browser, collected via Google Analytics (anonymised).
• Push notification token — if you enable browser notifications, we store your push subscription endpoint to deliver course and streak reminders.
• Hall of Fame applications - if you apply, we collect the public name, optional photo, school, IELTS scores, exam date, story, consent choices, and a private result document used for review.
• Guest practice - when you practise without an account, we keep a random browser session identifier, attempts, submitted writing or images, results, and credit usage to provide feedback and enforce usage limits. Your IP address is used for request and abuse limits.

2. How We Use Your Information

• Deliver and improve the platform features you use.
• Track your learning progress, award XP, badges, and completion certificates.
• Send optional learning progress, product announcement, and promotional emails according to your saved choices.
• Process enrollment payments and verify subscription status.
• Detect abuse, fraud, and violations of our Terms of Service.
• Improve the platform using aggregate, anonymised analytics data.
• Review Hall of Fame applications and publish achievement information only with your explicit permission.

We never sell your personal data to any third party.

3. Data Storage & Security

Your data is stored on cloud servers (AWS). We use industry-standard encryption for passwords (bcrypt) and HTTPS for all data in transit. Access tokens expire after 180 days. File uploads (profile photos, pay-slip screenshots) are stored in AWS S3 with private access controls.

Hall of Fame result documents are restricted to authorized Sakar reviewers and deleted after approval. Result documents and identifying numbers from them are never published.

4. Sharing Your Information

• Schools / educators — when you enroll in a course, the school can see your name and enrollment status so they can teach you. Schools cannot see your email address.
• Paddle — our payment processor for international card payments. Paddle acts as Merchant of Record. See Paddle's Privacy Policy.
• Google Analytics — anonymised usage data to understand platform performance. No personally identifiable information is shared.
• Firebase — used for Google sign-in. Firebase receives your Google account ID and email during the OAuth flow.
• Resend - delivers account and optional emails and reports delivery failures or spam complaints so we can stop sending to unreachable addresses.
• AI and speech processing — selected tools may send submitted text, images, audio, or transcripts to OpenRouter (which routes requests to a selected model provider), Google Gemini, or Groq for feedback, scoring, generation, or transcription. Which provider receives a submission depends on the tool and its configuration.
• Hall of Fame publicity - Sakar or the school you name may share your approved achievement or contact you only when you separately opt in to that specific use.

Saki Coach asks for permission before sending chat messages and relevant learning context through OpenRouter to a selected model provider. Obvious contact details and credentials are filtered from external prompts where possible. Sakar keeps Saki conversation transcripts for up to 90 days and records content-free operational usage metadata. Learners can delete a conversation, erase all Saki conversations and saved coaching data, or withdraw AI permission inside Saki. External providers may retain request data under their own terms; we do not claim zero retention for every tool.

5. Your Rights

• Access — request a copy of the data we hold about you.
• Correction — update your name, photo, or profile info at any time from your Settings page.
• Deletion — delete your account from Settings. We remove your personal data within 30 days. Anonymised learning records (e.g., aggregate course completion counts) may be retained.
• Portability — contact us to receive your data in a machine-readable format.
• Opt-out of push notifications — disable at any time from Settings → Notifications.
• Email choices - turn individual optional email categories on or off from Settings, or unsubscribe without signing in through the link included in every optional email.
• Hall of Fame withdrawal - you can immediately hide your Sakar recognition and withdraw future social-media or contact permission. Withdrawal cannot remove copies that other people saved or shared before permission was withdrawn.

To exercise any right, email us at contact@sakar.online.

6. Cookies

Guest practice uses first-party browser storage to remember your private session and drafts. Guest sessions expire after 30 days by default, and expired server records and uploaded prompt images are removed by scheduled cleanup. Signing in on the same browser transfers your guest results and credit usage into your verified account. Clearing browser storage can prevent us from recovering unclaimed guest results.

• Session cookies — keep you logged in (essential, cannot be disabled).
• Preference cookies — remember your dark/light mode setting.
• Analytics cookies — Google Analytics (anonymised). You can opt out via our cookie consent banner or your browser's privacy settings.

7. Children

Sakar is intended for users who are at least 18 years old. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. If you believe a child has provided us data, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

8. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will notify you via an in-app notification or email at least 14 days before the changes take effect. Continued use of Sakar after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

9. Contact

Questions about your privacy? Contact us at contact@sakar.online or via the Support page.