Privacy policy

1. Who we are

Elmday is a small, independent business in the United States. We make short daily reading lessons for children ages 2 to 8, used at home with a parent or guardian. In this policy, “Elmday”, “we” and “us” mean the business that runs elmday.app and the Elmday app. We are responsible for the information described here.

You can reach us at founder@elmday.app.

2. Parents are in charge

Elmday is made for children under 13, so we follow the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and treat the parent as the account holder.

• Only a parent or legal guardian sets up Elmday and adds children to it.
• Children don’t give us an email address, don’t sign in with social accounts, and can’t message anyone through Elmday.
• A parent PIN keeps settings and your child’s details away from little hands.
• There are no ads, and nothing for children to buy.

Today, the child information you enter in the app stays on your device (see section 4). If Elmday ever starts storing any child’s information on our own systems, for example to sync progress across devices, we will first update this policy, tell you directly by email, and ask for your consent as the parent before we collect anything.

3. The website and waitlist

What the waitlist form collects

When you join the waitlist or the founding circle list on elmday.app, we store:

• Your email address (required), so we can tell you when your spot opens and send occasional Elmday news.
• Your child’s age (optional), chosen from a list (2 through 8, or “9 or older”). It’s a single number, not a birthday.
• How many children you have (optional): 1, 2, or 3 or more.
• When you signed up, when you last updated your answers, and how many times the form was sent with your email.

That’s all. The form never asks for your child’s name or any other detail about your child. These answers are stored with Cloudflare, the company that hosts our website (see section 9). If you email us, we also keep that email conversation so we can help you.

No cookies, analytics or trackers

Our website doesn’t set cookies, and it doesn’t use analytics tools, advertising pixels, social media widgets or any other third-party scripts. Fonts and images are served from our own site, and the only script on the page is our own small one that sends the waitlist form.

Like every website host, Cloudflare necessarily handles basic technical information when you visit, such as your IP address, browser type and the page requested, to deliver the site and protect it from abuse. We don’t use this to build profiles or to follow you around the web.

4. The Elmday app

Elmday is in early access. Founding families use a version that runs in Safari on iPad, and the iOS app is being tested now. Here is what the app keeps, and where.

What the app stores about your child

• A first name or nickname that you type in. An initial or a pet name works just as well. The Starter levels use the letters of this name, because children love finding the letters in their own name. The name is only shown on screen. It’s never spoken by the tutor voice or sent to a voice service.
• A birth year (not a birthday), or an age range, to choose a sensible starting point.
• A picture-and-color “unlock” (for example, fox and clay) so your child can find their own profile without a password.
• Practice progress: your answers to the short placement questions, which lessons and levels are done, whether you tapped “Heard it clearly” or “Needed help” when your child read a word aloud, level certificates and “explored together” cards.
• Your settings, such as your parent PIN (saved in scrambled, hashed form) and lesson options.

We don’t ask for your child’s full name, photo, school, location or contact details. Please don’t add them.

Where it lives: on your device

In the current early-access app, all of this is saved in the app’s own storage on your iPad or iPhone (or in Safari’s storage for the Safari version). It isn’t sent to Elmday, and we can’t see it. You can remove a child’s profile at any time in the parent settings (behind your PIN), or delete everything by clearing the website data for Elmday in Safari, or by deleting the app. If we add optional features that store progress on our servers, we’ll follow the steps in section 2 first.

The tutor voice

The voice your child hears is pre-recorded audio that is part of Elmday itself. It was made once, in advance, using a text-to-speech service, and it plays the same way for every child. Nothing about your child, including their name, is sent anywhere to make it.

App updates and hosting

We build and deliver the app with Expo, an app development service. When the app opens, it may check Expo’s servers for an update, and the Safari version is served from Expo’s hosting. Like any web host, Expo handles technical information such as your IP address and device type to do this. Your child’s name and progress are not part of those requests.

The app has no advertising, analytics or crash-reporting tools built in. If you have chosen in your iPhone or iPad settings to share analytics with app developers, Apple may share anonymous crash reports with us, and you can turn that off in your device settings.

5. Microphone and voice

The current app doesn’t use the microphone, in the Starter levels or the reading levels. When your child reads a word aloud, you listen and tap whether you heard it clearly or they needed help. Elmday doesn’t record, store or send your child’s voice, and it never records photos or video.

We may one day offer optional “read-aloud help”, where the app listens as your child reads. If we do, it will be off by default, only a parent will be able to turn it on from behind the parent PIN, and we will update this policy and ask for your consent before it’s available to your family.

6. Payments

Payments aren’t live yet. When founding circle memberships open on our website, payments will be handled by Stripe. You’ll enter your card details on Stripe’s secure checkout, and Stripe processes and stores them under its own privacy policy. We never see or store your full card number.

From Stripe we receive only what we need to run your membership: your name and email address as you enter them at checkout, your plan, payment dates, whether a payment went through, and the brand and last four digits of your card. Payments are always made by the parent. Nothing about your child is shared with Stripe.

7. How we use information

• To tell you when your place opens, and to send occasional Elmday news. Every email has a way to unsubscribe.
• To understand which ages and family sizes are waiting, so we build the right lessons first. We look at these as simple totals.
• To run lessons, choose your child’s starting point and show progress in your parent view (on your device).
• To manage memberships, receipts and refunds once payments open.
• To answer your emails, fix problems and keep Elmday secure.
• To meet legal obligations, such as tax records.

8. What we never do

• We never sell or rent personal information, yours or your child’s.
• We never show ads, in the app or on our website, and we don’t use behavioral or targeted advertising.
• We never use or share anything about your child for marketing.
• We don’t use advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or analytics tools that follow people across sites or apps.
• We don’t let other companies use your family’s information for their own purposes.
• We don’t ask children for more information than a lesson needs.

9. Services we use

We use a small number of trusted companies to run Elmday. They handle information only to provide their service to us. We may also share information if the law requires it, or if it’s needed to protect someone’s safety.

If we add a service that handles your family’s information in a new way, we’ll update this list.

10. How long we keep it

• Waitlist details: until you ask us to remove them or unsubscribe, or until we close the waitlist. Then we delete them.
• Child profiles and progress in the app: on your device, until you delete them or remove the app. We don’t hold a copy.
• Emails with us: as long as they’re useful for helping you, and deleted on request unless we need to keep them by law.
• Billing records (once payments open): as long as tax and accounting laws require, even after a membership ends.
• Voice: never recorded or kept.

11. Reviewing and deleting your data

You’re in control. Email founder@elmday.app, ideally from the email address you signed up with, and we will:

• tell you what we hold about you and your child;
• correct anything that’s wrong;
• delete your waitlist entry, your emails, or anything else we hold about your family;
• stop collecting anything further about your child.

We may ask a simple question to make sure the request really comes from you. We’ll act on it promptly, and within 30 days at the latest.

You can review, change or delete your child’s profile and progress yourself at any time in the app’s parent settings, because it lives on your device. You can unsubscribe from Elmday news using the link in any email, or by writing to us.

12. Keeping it safe

We keep what we collect to a minimum, because the safest data is data we never hold. Our website and form use encrypted connections (HTTPS), access to the waitlist is limited to the Elmday team, and your parent PIN is stored in hashed form. No system is perfect, but if something ever went wrong that affected your information, we would tell you promptly and as the law requires.

13. If a child contacts us

Elmday isn’t for children to sign up for on their own. If you think a child has sent us personal information without a parent, for example by joining the waitlist or emailing us, please tell us and we’ll delete it promptly.

14. Where we operate

Elmday is run from the United States and is meant for families in the US. Our service providers may process information in the US and in other countries where they operate.

15. Changes to this policy

As Elmday grows, this policy will change, and we’ll always update the date at the top. If a change affects how we handle children’s information, we’ll email you before it takes effect and ask for your consent again where needed.

16. Contact us

Questions, requests or worries about privacy: founder@elmday.app. We read every message.

The Elmday team