Privacy policy

Who we are

pronunciation.bot is run by Hyperstake AI. On this page, "we" means Hyperstake AI.

You can write to us at [email protected].

The short version

• You send a voice message. AI speech models on Cloudflare listen to it. We give you a score and one thing to try.
• We keep your scores and the words the models heard. We do not keep copies of ordinary practice recordings.
• We keep a copy of two recordings each week, so that you can hear your before and after. The bot tells you before you record one.
• You can delete your data at any time. Send /deletedata to the bot.
• Three things stay when you delete your data: your payment records, a note that you used your free trial, and for two days a count of your scored recordings.
• The bot is for people aged 16 and over.
• We do not sell your data and we do not use it for advertising.

What we store

When you use the bot, we store:

• Your Telegram user number, your first name, and the language of your Telegram app. Telegram sends these when you press Start.
• How you found us. If you opened the bot from a link with a short tag, we store that tag. If the link was for a launch price, we store its code too.
• For each practice recording: which sentence you were practising, Telegram's reference to the voice message, its length in seconds, your score, and the words the speech models heard (the transcript).
• Where you are in the course: the unit, the day and the step you are on, and when you started and finished that day's lesson.
• When you started your first lesson. Your free trial runs for 14 days from that moment.
• If you buy a package: which package, which weeks of the course it opens, and from when until when.
• For each payment: your Telegram user number, the number Telegram gives the payment, the package, the number of Stars, the dates, and whether it was refunded.
• If you ask for a refund: when you asked, and whether Telegram made the refund.
• Whether the bot has shown you the offer to buy a package. It shows it once after your first week's before and after, and once at the end of a week.
• The lessons you have finished, and the day you finished each one. Your streak is counted from these.
• A copy of your assessment recordings, with their scores. The next sections say which recordings these are.
• Your answer, yes or no, when a lesson asks you a question about your own recording.
• If you press "This seems wrong" under a result: which result it was, and when you pressed it.
• The time you first sent a voice message after you saw our notice. This is the record of your agreement.
• The time of day you asked to be reminded, if you asked. If you did not ask, the time of day you started your first lesson: a new lesson opens at that time each day.
• Which reminders we sent you and on which day, the last day you used the bot, and how many reminders in a row you did not answer. After five we stop sending them.
• If you have not used the bot for a long time after asking for reminders: that we sent you the one message that says your place is kept. We send it once.
• If your next lesson is not in your plan: which free daily sentence the bot gave you on which day. This way the sentences change. We also store the day it last showed you the plan under one.
• Whether you paused your lessons, and until when.
• How many of your recordings were scored on each day, and how long they were in seconds. The bot scores a set number of recordings for each learner each day.
• Whether Telegram told us that a message could not be delivered to you, for example because you blocked the bot. We then send you nothing until you write again.
• Whether Telegram told us that you do not accept voice messages. We then send you the example voice as an audio file. We also store when we first told you that the example voice is made by AI.
• The number Telegram gives each message it delivers to us. We use it so that we never answer the same message twice. It does not say who you are.
• If you write to the team with /support: your messages, our answers, and when each was sent. We delete them 12 months after the team closes the conversation, or sooner when you delete your data.

We do not ask for your phone number, your email address or your location, and Telegram does not send them to us.

We never see your card or your bank details. Payments are made in Telegram Stars, inside Telegram.

What happens to a voice message

A voice message you send is stored by Telegram, like every message in your chats.

To score it, our server asks Telegram for the audio and sends it to two speech recognition models on Cloudflare Workers AI. One is Whisper, a model made by OpenAI. The other is Nova-3, a model made by Deepgram. Cloudflare runs both.

Cloudflare states that it does not store what is sent to Workers AI after it has answered, and that it does not use it to train models. Nova-3 is offered under Deepgram's own terms. Each time we use it, we set the option that tells Deepgram not to use your audio to improve its models.

The models tell us which words they heard. Our own software turns that into your score and your feedback. The feedback is built from sentences that we wrote. No AI writes it.

We do not keep a copy of an ordinary practice recording. We keep Telegram's reference to it. With that reference we can ask Telegram for the audio again, for example when you want to hear it. If Telegram no longer has the file, it cannot be played.

Recordings we keep: assessment recordings

From the first full lesson onward, a few of your recordings are assessment recordings. Each week has two: you record the week's sentence on Day 1, and the same sentence again on Day 5. The bot says that it keeps the recording before you make it.

We keep a copy of assessment recordings in our own storage on Cloudflare. We do this for one reason: so that you can hear your "before" and your "after". On Day 5 the bot sends both recordings back to you, with the two scores.

If the software that scores recordings has changed between the two, we score the stored Day 1 recording again, so that the two scores can be compared fairly. The recording goes to the same speech models as before.

The first sentence you record when you start the bot is not an assessment recording. We do not keep a copy of it. A sentence that you practise again or review is not an assessment recording either.

In the last week of the course you record the very first sentence of the course once more. That final recording is kept too, and the bot sends it back next to your Day 1 recording of the first week, with the two scores.

Why we use your data

• To give you a score and feedback on your pronunciation.
• To show you your progress over time.
• To send you a reminder, if you asked for one.
• To keep the service working, to find problems and to stop misuse.
• To count, in total, how people find the bot and how they use it.

Who else handles your data

• Telegram. The bot lives in Telegram, so Telegram handles your messages and, later, your payments in Telegram Stars.
• Cloudflare. Our server, our database, our file storage and the speech models run on Cloudflare.
• Deepgram. It makes the Nova-3 model, which runs on Cloudflare as described above.

These companies may handle data in countries other than yours.

Only the people who work on pronunciation.bot can see your data. They use it to run the service and to help you when you ask. Each time one of them listens to one of your recordings, we keep a record of who did it and when.

How long we keep it

We keep your data while you use the bot, until you delete it or ask us to delete it.

We keep a copy of an assessment recording until 30 days after your access to its week ends, or until you have not used the bot for 180 days. The first of the two counts. The score of the recording stays. While a package you bought is still open, we keep your recordings.

If you do not use the bot for 24 months, we delete your data, as /deletedata does. We do not send a message first. The same things stay as when you delete your data yourself.

Technical records are kept for a short time. The list of Telegram messages we have already handled is deleted after 48 hours. The record of the reminders we sent is deleted after 30 days.

A conversation with the team through /support is deleted, with its messages, 12 months after the team closed it. While it is open, we keep it.

We keep the record of a payment for our accounts, also after you delete your data. The next section says what is in it.

This page is a draft. Before the course opens to everyone, we will add a fixed time limit here for payment records.

How to delete your data

Send /deletedata to the bot. The bot tells you what will be deleted and asks you to confirm. When you confirm, we delete your scores, the transcripts, the references to your recordings, the assessment recordings we kept, your messages to the team, your settings and your user record. This cannot be undone.

If you bought a package, your access to its lessons is deleted too. Our refund policy says how you can still get a refund.

Three things are not deleted.

The first is the record of each payment you made. It holds your Telegram user number, the number Telegram gives the payment, the package, the number of Stars, the dates, and whether it was refunded. If you asked for a refund, we also keep when you asked and how it ended. We must keep these records for our accounts.

The second is a note that your Telegram account has used its free trial. It holds your Telegram user number and the time your trial began, and nothing else. Because of it, deleting your data and starting again does not start a second trial.

The third is the count of recordings we scored for you today and yesterday, and their length in seconds. It holds your Telegram user number, the day and these counts, and nothing else. It keeps the daily limit the same if you delete your data and start again on the same day, and it is deleted after two days.

We cannot delete the messages in your Telegram chat with the bot. You can delete them yourself in Telegram.

If you cannot use the bot, write to [email protected] from any address and tell us your Telegram username. We will delete your data for you.

Your other choices

You can ask us for a copy of the data we hold about you, or ask us to correct it. Write to [email protected].

The law of the country where you live may give you more rights. We will respect them.

Age

pronunciation.bot is for people aged 16 and over. If you are younger, please do not use it.

If we learn that someone under 16 is using the bot, we will delete their data.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we change the date at the top of the page. If a change is important, the bot will tell you.

Contact

Questions about this page? Write to [email protected]. We answer in English.