Việt Connect
Việt Connect ("we," "the app") is a Vietnamese↔English language-learning app with live video practice, developed by Erick Keene, who is responsible for your data (the "controller"). This policy explains what we collect, why, who else handles it, how long we keep it, and what control you have over it.
| Category | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Email address, password (hashed by our backend provider, Supabase — we never see it in plain text) | Sign in, identify your account |
| Profile | Display name, avatar photo, bio, region, hometown, learning level, native language, how well you speak Vietnamese | Shown to other users when you interact with them |
| Age | Date of birth, stored privately with your sign-in account and used to set an age category (13–17 or 18+). Other users never see your birthdate. | Required by law and by app store policy to restrict live video with strangers to adults |
| Location | Approximate location, only if you post or browse events on the map | Show nearby meetups; never collected unless you use this feature |
| Audio & video | Camera and microphone access during a call | Live practice calls. See "How calls work" below — we do not record or store call audio/video on our servers. |
| Community voice recordings | If you choose to contribute: recordings of you saying words and sentences, with your display name, hometown accent and voice type (male/female), and the date you agreed to the recording terms | Played publicly to learners so they can hear real accents from every region. You agree before your first recording, and you can remove any recording at any time. If you delete your account, you choose whether your approved recordings stay (without your name) or are removed. |
| Lesson recaps | When a lesson ends: the room title, who took part, how long it lasted, attendance, words and corrections from the lesson and — if live captions were on — the caption transcript | So everyone who took part can review the lesson afterwards |
| Messages | Direct messages, sentence corrections you submit. Chat inside a live room is not stored after the room ends. | Core app functionality; stored so conversations persist between sessions |
| Activity | Study progress, streaks, the optional “about me” answers you give Today (first name, country, city, age) so your practice conversations are about you, quiz scores, typing-practice speed and accuracy, decks you create or import, contributor points and time spent contributing, and how much time you spend in the app each day | Track your learning progress across sessions; show your contributions; help us understand how the app is used |
| Conversations you write | Titles and lines of role-play conversations you create, and whether they're “Just me” or for everyone | So you can practise them on any device; “Everyone” ones are shared with all learners once a teacher approves them |
| Suggested fixes | Corrections you suggest to words, sentences or translations, role-play replies you send for a teacher to check, and your review votes if you're a teacher | Improve the app's content for everyone |
| Lessons & bookings | Lesson times you book or teach, an optional note to your teacher, the lesson price, and whether it's marked unpaid / sent / paid | Run in-app booking; shown to the student and teacher on that booking, and to the app's administrator for support and safety (for example a missed-lesson or payment dispute) |
| Teacher payment details | If you teach: the payment accounts you choose to add (e.g. bank account for VietQR, MoMo, ZaloPay, PayPal, Wise, Venmo, Zelle) | Shown only to students who have booked a lesson with you. We never process payments. |
| Card payments (Stripe) | If a teacher connects Stripe: their Stripe account ID, country and whether it can take payments; for a card payment, the Stripe checkout ID on that booking. We never see or store card numbers — you type them on Stripe's own page. | So students can pay that teacher by card and the booking is marked paid automatically. The money goes straight to the teacher's own Stripe account; we take no fee. |
| Teacher recordings | If you teach: short audio clips you record — of words, of homework lines, and of the recording sets you make for students (each with its sentence, its English and a set name such as “Lesson 1”) | Played only to your students: on that word's flashcard, in homework you assign, or in a set you share with one student or with all your students |
| Shadowing clips | If you teach: short audio or video clips you add to Shadowing (up to 30 seconds), with the line, its meaning, your accent region, a level and an optional set name, and how many times each was played | Shown publicly to every learner in Shadowing, with your teacher name and a link to your teacher profile. You can remove any clip at any time; anyone can report a clip and a clip with several reports is hidden until it is checked. A learner's own practice recordings stay on their device and are never uploaded. |
| Calendar link | A private, random link to a calendar feed of your lessons (only if you turn on calendar sync) | Lets Google / Apple / Outlook Calendar show your lessons; you can reset it any time |
| Homework | Assignments a teacher gives you (including sentences and recordings the teacher writes for it), your answers, time studied, accuracy, which sentences you needed help with, and any grade or feedback | Shared only between you and the teacher who assigned it |
| Notifications | If you allow them: a push address for your device | Tell you about messages, lessons and calls |
| Safety | Reports you file, blocks you set, moderation actions taken against you | Keep the community safe; see Section 6 |
On your device. The app also keeps settings and learning progress in your browser's storage so it works offline. We don't use tracking cookies, analytics or advertising tools.
Practice calls and rooms use WebRTC, a peer-to-peer technology: your video and audio travel directly (or via a relay server that only forwards encrypted data) to the other people in the call. We do not record, store, or have access to the content of your calls. Call metadata — that a call happened, its length, and who was in it — may be logged for abuse investigation. "Go Live" broadcasts to many viewers are the exception: those stream through LiveKit's servers so many people can watch at once.
Recording by other participants. "Record this lesson" saves a recording to the recorder's own device. It only starts once everyone in the room agrees, anyone who joins later is told, and everyone sees a REC indicator while it's on. We never receive that recording.
Live subtitles (captions) and translation. Subtitles are switched on for the whole call, but each person decides about their own voice. When you turn subtitles on — or when someone else in the call does — the app first tells you what happens and asks. Only if you choose “Share my speech” is your microphone audio sent, while subtitles stay on, to a speech-to-text service: Microsoft Azure Speech (which receives a short-lived access token, not your account), or, if that isn't available, your browser's own speech recognition (Google, Apple or Microsoft). If you choose “Only show theirs”, nothing from your microphone is sent and you still see the others' subtitles; you can change your mind with the CC button, which also stops sending your voice at any time. You can tick “Don't ask me again” on a device; clearing the app's site data brings the question back. Recognized text is translated by Google Translate (MyMemory as a backup), shown to the people in the call and saved in the lesson recap. If a room turns on the automatic lesson notebook, recent subtitle lines are sent to an AI model (Groq) to spot corrections and new words. We don't store the audio.
Speaking practice. In “Say it” (and anywhere else with a 🎤 check), tapping the microphone starts your device's or browser's own speech recognition — Google on Android and Chrome, Apple on iPhone and Safari, Microsoft on Edge — so the app can compare what you said with the answer. It listens only after your tap and stops by itself after a few seconds; the result is checked in the app and nothing you say is stored by us.
Automatic translation. When a teacher types a sentence — in recording sets for students, in homework, or in the Tone Trainer — and the app has no English for it, the sentence's text (never your account) is sent to Google Translate, with MyMemory as a backup, to suggest a translation. The result is saved on that device so the same sentence isn't sent twice.
Teachers' busy times. A teacher can connect the private address of their own calendar (for example Google Calendar, where Preply and italki put their lessons) so those times can't be booked here twice. Our server reads that calendar every 15 minutes and keeps only the start and end times of busy events for the next two months — never titles, guests or notes. The teacher can stop it at any time in their teacher profile, and the stored times are then removed.
Teacher profile views. When you open a teacher's profile we count one view for that day (your account, or a random device number if you're signed out) so teachers can see how many people visit. Teachers only ever see totals — never who looked.
Community rooms. Messages you post in the always-open Community rooms (General, Practice Vietnamese, Questions…) are stored and shown to every signed-in adult member, with your display name and photo (the Teachers' lounge only to teachers). You can edit or delete your own messages at any time; removed messages are hidden from everyone. The rooms are for adults (18+) only. When you tap 🌐 Translate on a message, that message's text — never your account — is sent to Google Translate (MyMemory as a backup). Reports go to the team and three reports pause an account until it's reviewed. If you choose 📷 Show my camera in a room, a tiny live video from your camera goes straight from your device to the devices of the people who have that room open at that moment (peer to peer — when a network blocks that, through our connection relay, Cloudflare); it is never stored or recorded, and it stops when you turn it off, leave the room or the app. It is off unless you turn it on each time. Voice rooms (General voice, Speak Vietnamese, Speak English) work the same way: when you join one, your voice goes straight to the people in that room and is never recorded; the people in the room and anyone looking at the room list see your display name and photo while you're in it.
Group chats. Messages in a group chat are stored and shown to that group's current members, with your display name and photo. You can only be added by someone you've messaged, a favorite, or your teacher or student; you can leave any group, mute it, edit or delete your own messages, and report a message. The group's owner can remove messages and members.
Group classes and class lists. When you book a seat in a group class we store the seat (with any note you add, whether you said you paid, and whether you joined the class room), and the teacher sees your display name, photo, note, payment status and attendance. Teachers can save class lists of their students; a student on a list can see and book classes made for that list. Payment goes straight to the teacher — Việt Connect never handles the money.
Reminders, weekly recap and leaderboards. When you're signed in, the app saves a small daily study log on our servers (points, active minutes and new words for each day, plus your streak, streak freezes, time zone and the reminders you chose) so reminders can reach you at the right local time and your weekly recap can be sent. Your teacher sees each of their students' last 7 days in the weekly recap. Your weekly points appear on leaderboards (to friends, your teacher or students, and your group chats) only if you turn on “Show me on leaderboards”. Every reminder is off until you turn it on, and you can turn them off any time in Settings.
Việt Connect is not for children under 13. Users 13–17 can use every learning feature (flashcards, quizzes, decks, reading, homework from a teacher) but cannot use quick match, cannot create or appear in public rooms, and cannot be listed in "online now" — those features are restricted to users 18 and older. Quick match, public rooms and live broadcasting are enforced on our servers, not only in the app, so they cannot be bypassed by using a different device or client. Accounts without a birthdate on file are treated as under 18 for these features until one is added. If the law where you live sets a higher age for agreeing to data use (for example 16 in some EU countries), a parent or guardian needs to agree for you.
If we learn that a user under 13 has created an account, we will delete it. Our full Child Safety Standards explain how we prevent and report child exploitation. If you believe a child under 13 is using the app, contact us at erick.e.keene@gmail.com.
Our main database is in the United States (Supabase, Oregon), and some providers work worldwide. If you live in the EU, the UK, Vietnam or elsewhere, your data is therefore transferred to and processed in the United States and other countries. We rely on the safeguards our providers offer for this, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.
Wherever you live, you can:
For anything else — or if you can't use the app — email erick.e.keene@gmail.com. We answer within 30 days and may ask you to confirm it's you.
Reports are reviewed by the developer. We act on reports of objectionable content within 24 hours. Accounts are automatically suspended pending review after receiving reports from 3 distinct users. We may retain a report and the reported content temporarily to investigate and enforce our Community Rules, even after the reported content is deleted from normal view.
Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS) between your device and our servers, and calls use DTLS/SRTP encryption between participants. Access rules in our database mean users can only read and change their own data. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach puts your data at risk, we'll tell you and the authorities that need to know without undue delay — within 72 hours where the law requires it.
If we make a material change to this policy, we'll update the date at the top of this page and, where required, notify you in-app.
Erick Keene
erick.e.keene@gmail.com
United States