Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Cedarly (formerly Cedar Speak) is a Lebanese Arabic learning service operated in Canada at cedarspeak.ca. We handle personal information in line with Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and applicable provincial privacy laws.

Our Privacy Officer is accountable for how we handle personal information and can be reached at [email protected].

2. What we collect

• Account details: your email address and, if you sign in with Google, your name and profile picture. We request only basic Google profile access. We do not access Gmail, Drive, Calendar or any other Google content.
• Learning data: lessons, alphabet and course progress, onboarding answers, saved words and review history, and texts you add to Read.
• Text you submit: what you type into Translate, Explain, the Dictionary and the reader, so we can return a response.
• Speaking practice: during voice-checked exercises, your microphone audio is streamed to our speech-recognition provider to produce a transcript. We do not store the audio. We keep the transcript, the expected answer and whether you accepted or appealed the result, to improve answer matching.
• Payment details: payments are handled by Stripe. We receive your Stripe customer reference and subscription status, never your full card number.
• Usage and technical data: daily usage counts (to enforce plan limits), your IP address, browser and device type, and anonymous page-view statistics.
• Safety logs: texts you add to Read, and requests to Translate and Explain, are checked automatically for harmful content and attempts to get around our safeguards. If one is blocked, we record the text you submitted, its title or any context you added, your IP address, your account, and the automated results that led to the block.

3. How we use it

• To run the service: sign you in, return translations and explanations, save your progress and words, and play audio.
• To manage paid plans: process payments, apply your plan’s features and limits, and handle billing questions.
• To keep the service safe: enforce usage limits, detect and block abuse, and investigate misuse of the service.
• To improve Cedarly: fix bugs and improve lessons and answer matching, using the data described above.
• To contact you about your account: security notices, receipts and support replies.

We do not sell your personal information, use it for advertising, or use your Google data for anything other than signing you in and showing your profile.

4. Consent

We collect and use your information with your consent, which you give by creating an account, using a feature, or choosing to share something with us. Some uses, such as security and fraud prevention, are necessary to provide the service.

You can withdraw consent at any time by deleting your account or contacting us. Some features won’t work without the information they need; for example, Translate can’t work without the text you submit.

5. Service providers

We share personal information only with service providers that help us run Cedarly, and only what each one needs to do its job. They fall into these categories:

• Hosting and infrastructure: running the website, storing your account and learning data, and anonymous, cookie-free usage statistics.
• AI and language services: generating translations, explanations, word meanings and example sentences, and checking requests and uploaded texts for abuse. They receive the text you submit.
• Speech services: turning text into audio, and speech recognition during speaking practice.
• Payments: Stripe processes payments and subscriptions.
• Sign-in: Google, if you choose to sign in with it.

These providers process information on our behalf, under contracts and their own security commitments, and may not use it for their own purposes. AI providers receive only the text needed to respond, and where they offer the choice, we do not allow them to use it to train their models.

You can ask us for more information about the service providers that handle your information by emailing [email protected].

We may also disclose information when required by law, or to protect the safety of any person, and to a buyer or successor if Cedarly is sold or merged, under this policy.

6. Where your information is stored

Our systems are hosted mainly in the United States, and our service providers may process information in the United States and other countries. Information stored outside Canada is subject to the laws of those countries, and may be accessible to their courts and authorities. We choose providers with safeguards comparable to those required in Canada.

7. Stored on your device

Cedarly keeps some things in your browser’s local storage rather than on our servers: your recent translations and lookups, settings such as your start page, alphabet and audio-course progress, and usage hints. Clearing your browser data removes them. We use cookies only to keep you signed in and to complete sign-in; we do not use advertising cookies.

8. How long we keep it

• Account and learning data: while your account exists. Deleting your account deletes it.
• Text you submit to Translate and Explain: not stored on our servers after the response is returned, except in safety logs or where you choose to save it (for example, saving a word or adding a text to Read).
• Safety logs: 180 days, then deleted automatically. They are kept for that period even if the account is deleted, without the link to the account, so we can act on abuse.
• Billing records: as long as tax and accounting laws require, which is generally six years in Canada.

9. Security

We protect personal information with safeguards suited to its sensitivity: encrypted connections, access controls on our database, server-side keys that never reach your browser, and restricted access to safety logs. No system is perfectly secure.

If a breach of security safeguards creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as the law requires, and keep a record of the breach.

10. Your rights

• Access: ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Correction: ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Deletion: delete your account at any time in Settings → Account. This also cancels any active subscription.
• Withdraw consent: as described above.

Email [email protected] for access or correction requests. We will respond within 30 days. If you’re not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca), or your provincial privacy commissioner where applicable.

11. Children

Cedarly is not intended for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.

12. Email

We send emails needed to run your account, such as sign-in links, receipts and support replies. We will only send promotional emails if you have agreed to receive them, as required by Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation, and every promotional email will include a way to unsubscribe.

13. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top of this page. If a change significantly affects how we use your information, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.

14. Contact

Questions or requests about privacy: [email protected].