Privacy Policy
Vietling · last updated 10 September 2026
Vietling is a Vietnamese vocabulary app. This policy describes exactly what it stores, where, and
what you can do about it.
The short version. When you finish setting up, Vietling makes an account for you
automatically — no email or password — so your progress is backed up and you can take part in the
weekly league. Other learners can see your display name, profile picture, pet and weekly XP.
There are no adverts and no analytics, and nothing is sold. You can delete the account, and
everything we hold for it, from inside the app at any time — and once you have, the app will not
make another one unless you ask it to.
What we store for every account
- A display name and a profile picture — the name you give during setup, or a
generated one such as “Vui Rùa 41” if you give none, and the zodiac animal
you pick. Shown to other learners (see below).
- Your pet — its species, name and level. Shown to other learners.
- Your study data — which words you have studied, when each is next due, your
recent review history, streak, XP, league and weekly XP, and the day you last studied. This is
what the account exists to keep safe, and what lets the app bring words back at the right
time on any device.
- Your app settings — including three things you may give during setup:
- your age, because Vietnamese has no age-neutral word for
“you”, so your age decides which kinship terms it teaches first;
- the country you are from, so the app can teach you to say so;
- the topics you picked, which change the order words arrive in.
Each is used for that and nothing else, and none is shown to anyone.
- Your friends list — the learners you have added, and friend requests you have
sent or received.
- A sign-in token — a random key that identifies this device to your account,
stored on the server only in hashed form, and a friend code you can hand to people.
Only if you add an email sign-in
- Your email address — as your login, and nothing else. We send no email of
any kind.
- Your password — never in readable form. It is hashed with scrypt and a
per-account salt, so it cannot be recovered from our database, by us or anyone else.
Only if you sign in with Apple
- An identifier Apple gives us — a long string that stands for you, and
only within Vietling. Apple gives a different one to every other developer, so it cannot be
used to recognise you anywhere else. It is what your account is attached to.
- Your email address, if Apple sends one — as your login, and nothing
else. If you chose Hide My Email, what we get is the forwarding address Apple
invented for us and not your real one. We send no email of any kind either way.
- Your name, once — if you let Apple share it, it becomes your display
name, which you can change at any time in your profile. Apple offers it only on the first
sign-in and never again.
Signing in with Apple tells Apple that you use Vietling. It does not tell us anything about you
beyond the three things above, and no password ever reaches us — your device proves who you
are to Apple, and Apple hands us a signed statement we check ourselves.
Other things the server sees
- Your network address, when an account is created or a sign-in fails — used
only to limit repeated attempts, so a stolen list of passwords cannot be tried against
accounts as fast as a network allows.
- A push subscription, if you turn reminders on in a web browser — the address
your browser gives us to deliver them to. On Android and iPhone, reminders are scheduled on
the device itself and nothing is sent to us for them.
What we never collect
- No analytics or usage tracking.
- No advertising, and no advertising identifiers.
- No location, contacts, photos, microphone or camera access.
- No social login except Sign in with Apple, above, which you have to choose.
Who else can see it
Other learners. Each week you are placed in a league group with other learners,
and the app suggests people you might add as friends from those who have studied recently. Both
show your display name, profile picture, pet and weekly XP. Your age, country, topics, email
address and study history are never shown to anyone.
Reporting and blocking. Press and hold any learner on the league board, in
friend suggestions or in your friends list to report or block them. Blocking is immediate and
works both ways — they disappear from your lists and you disappear from theirs — and
you can undo it under Blocked learners in Settings. When you report somebody we store
who you reported, the reason you picked, their display name at that moment and anything you
typed, so a person can read it; we aim to look at every report within a day. Names are also
checked against a list of slurs when they are set, which catches the obvious and is the reason
the other two exist. Anything you want to raise directly:
ben@benewert.com.
Service providers. Two companies process data on our behalf, and only to run the
app: Vercel (hosting) and Neon (the database). We do not sell
your data, rent it, or share it for advertising.
YouTube, if you watch a lesson. The pronunciation lessons are YouTube videos,
played through YouTube’s privacy-enhanced embed. Opening one loads it from YouTube, which
receives what any web request carries — your network address and device information — under
Google’s privacy policy. Nothing from
Vietling is sent to YouTube, and nothing is loaded from it unless you open a lesson.
Audio
Pronunciation audio is generated ahead of time and ships inside the app. Nothing you do is sent to
a speech service while you use it.
Deleting your data
- Delete your account: tap your profile at the top of Home, then
Account, data & credits → Account → Delete my account. This
erases your account, your backed-up deck, your place in the league and every friend
connection from our server. It is immediate and cannot be undone. You can also ask for it
without the app: see deleting your account.
- If you signed in with Apple, deleting your account also tells Apple to
revoke it, so Vietling stops appearing under your Apple ID and any Hide My Email
address Apple gave us is released. You can also do this yourself at any time under
Settings → your name → Sign in with Apple on your iPhone.
- After you delete it, or sign out, the app stops creating accounts by itself
and sends nothing to our server, until you choose to create an account or log in again.
- Erase the copy on your device: Account, data & credits →
Reset all progress, or delete the app.
These are separate on purpose: deleting your account is a request about the account, so it does
not silently wipe the copy on the phone in your hand.
Children
Vietling is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect data from them.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what is collected, the date at the top changes with
it.
Contact
Questions about this policy or your data: ben@benewert.com.