Curtilage

Privacy policy

SpeakSharp privacy policy

How SpeakSharp handles your information.

Last updated:

Summary

  • Your recordings, transcripts and scores stay on your phone. Speech recognition and the AI coaching both run on your phone.
  • The app connects to the internet only to download the speech and language models when you tap Download, and, in the version installed from our website, to check for updates. Neither request carries your recordings, your writing or your scores.
  • There is one opt-in exception: if you turn on "Allow online voices", your phone's text-to-speech service sends the lines it reads aloud to its voice provider. It is off by default.
  • We do not receive usage data. The app's usage counts stay in a database on your phone.

What the app collects

SpeakSharp is a speaking-practice app. To work, it stores on your phone:

  • Your recordings. Audio files of the takes you record.
  • Transcripts and scores. The text the app heard in each take, and the scores, metrics and coaching it produced.
  • Your scripts and their earlier versions, and any flashcards or decks you import.
  • Settings you choose, such as the theme, the voice, where models are stored, your conversation settings and any changes you make to the coaching rubrics.
  • Usage counts. The app records a short event name and time when you use certain features, with a session number and a few plain values such as a count or a drill name. These records stay on your phone, and you can see them under Settings, "Usage".
  • Microphone sound, only while you are recording a take.

Where it goes

On your phone

  • Speech is turned into text on your phone, by a speech model the app downloads once. If that model is not there yet, the app uses Android's on-device speech recognizer, and only if your phone has one that runs on the device.
  • Coaching and alternate phrasings are written by a language model running on your phone. The app does not send your takes or your writing to an AI service.
  • Recordings, transcripts and the app's database stay in the app's private storage. Android Auto Backup is turned off for this app. Recordings, the database and the models are also excluded from phone-to-phone transfer. Your settings file is not on that exclusion list, so Android may copy your settings to a new phone during setup.
  • If you choose to keep models on a memory card, the model files are stored there. Your recordings and transcripts are not.
  • The app does not add its own encryption to its database or files. They are protected by Android's normal app sandbox and your phone's own storage encryption, if your phone uses it.

Your own server

  • None. The app has no account and no sync.

Our server (website version only)

  • The version installed from our website checks our download server for a newer version about every 6 hours when you open the app, and when you tap "Check now". The request asks for a small file that lists the latest version. It carries no data about you or your use of the app, but like any internet request it shows our server your internet (IP) address. You can turn off "Check automatically" in Settings. If you accept an update, the app downloads it from the same server and Android asks you to confirm the install.
  • The version from Google Play has no update check.

Third-party services

  • Model downloads. When you tap Download, the speech model comes from alphacephei.com (the publisher of the Vosk speech recognizer) and the language model comes from huggingface.co and its download network. These requests carry no data about you, but they show those services your IP address.
  • Online voices (off by default). If you turn on "Allow online voices" and pick an online voice, the text-to-speech service on your phone sends each line it reads aloud to its provider. These lines are text you wrote or imported. Your recordings and transcripts are not sent.
  • Google Play. If you installed from Google Play, Google may collect crash reports under its own terms. The app has no crash-reporting service of its own.

Permissions and why

  • Microphone (record audio)
    • Why the app asks: To record your takes and recognize what you said
    • When: When you first start a drill that records
  • Internet
    • Why the app asks: To download the speech and language models, and, in the website version, to check for updates
    • When: When you tap Download, and on the update schedule above
  • Install other apps (website version only)
    • Why the app asks: To hand a downloaded update to Android's installer. You confirm every install
    • When: Only when you accept an update

Analytics

We do not run analytics on this app, and the app does not send usage data to us or to anyone else. It keeps simple usage counts in its own database on your phone, as described above. "Clear all history" deletes them, and so does uninstalling the app.

Sharing with other Curtilage apps

Lantern (our journaling app) can send a deck of its lines to SpeakSharp to rehearse. The deck comes in only when you share it from Lantern and choose "Rehearse in SpeakSharp". SpeakSharp shows you what it contains, and saves nothing until you press the import button. SpeakSharp does not send anything to Lantern or to any other Curtilage app.

SpeakSharp does not use the BrainTrust app. Its coaching runs on its own model on your phone.

Your choices

  • Export: You can export one script as a text file, or all scripts as a zip file, to a place you choose. Recordings and transcripts are not part of the export.
  • Import: You can import scripts from text or zip files, flashcards from AnyMemo deck files, decks shared from Lantern, and a language model file you already have.
  • Delete: Settings has "Delete all recordings" (removes every take and its audio) and "Clear all history" (removes every session, score, focus item, usage record and recording). Both ask once and cannot be undone. Uninstalling the app removes everything it stored on your phone, including models in its storage.
  • Turn off: "Allow online voices" is off unless you turn it on. In the website version you can turn off "Check automatically". You can revoke the microphone permission in Android's settings.

Children

SpeakSharp is made for teens and adults. It is not directed at children under 13. It does not ask for anyone's age, has no account, and we do not receive any information from it.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will post the new version on this page and update the date at the top.

Contact

Questions about this policy: https://curtilage.zone/contact