Privacy Policy

Language learning should be fun, and we want you to be able to use Geeks in Kyoto by initiating dialogue in your words, on topics and situations relevant to you. At the same time, learning is a semi-public activity. Don't enter deeply personal, sensitive, or confidential details in the chat — just as you wouldn't talk about them in class where they'd be heard by the teacher and other students.

If you are a minor, have someone else pay for your account and don't share any personal details about yourself. We don't aim any products or services specifically at minors.

What we store and why

When you subscribe, we store your chat history, learning progress, vocabulary queries, and example sentences so the service adapts to your level and works on your weak areas. Without this, every session would start from scratch.

You can delete your data at any time. If you've entered something you'd rather keep private, email privacy@geeksincities.com and we'll remove it.

Language learning is fun. But imagine you're in class with other students. With that out of the way, the legal part.

What we store

Chat messages, learning history, vocabulary queries, example sentences, progress data, and account information.

Why

To give you a personalised language learning service that responds to your dialogue and adapts to your progress.

For how long

For an indefinite period. You can stop and pick up where you left off years later, so long as the service remains available. If we stop offering the service to the public, we delete your data.

Who we share your data with

We share your data with technology partners to enable us to provide the service:

Cloud infrastructure and hosting: Cloudflare
AI inference: Google (Gemini API)
Payment processing (when available): a third-party processor acting as Merchant of Record — the processor will be named here once arrangements are finalised

Each has their own privacy policy regarding data held on their systems on our behalf. If we change technology partners, your data will be moved accordingly and this policy will be updated.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you have rights under laws such as the UK GDPR, EU GDPR, and California Consumer Privacy Act. These include the right to:

Access the personal data we hold about you
Have inaccurate data corrected
Request deletion of your data
Export your data in a portable format
Object to or restrict certain processing

To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@geeksincities.com. We will respond within 30 days.

What we won't do

We will not use your data for advertising or unsolicited marketing purposes.
We will not share or sell your data to third parties for any purpose other than billing and providing the language learning service itself.

Deleting your data

To delete your data, write to privacy@geeksincities.com. We will delete your data from our live systems within 30 days.

Your data may still exist in archival form such as encrypted site backups, as it is impractical to selectively delete individual records from these. Archived data is retained only for disaster recovery and is not accessed for any other purpose. Backups are rotated out within a reasonable period.

Staff access

Staff and contractors of Geeks in Cities Ltd will technically have access to and the ability to view your learning data, as system administrators routinely do. However, we are bound by professional ethics. Our staff and contractors are prohibited from looking at your learning history, chat history, vocabulary queries, or other data that you enter, except as required to resolve a technical issue you have reported.

AI and your data

Our service is powered by AI. A highly capable AI system reads your chat and acts as your personal tutor. If you have a privacy concern regarding the AI itself reading your chat, this is the wrong service for you.

Billing

We are not yet accepting subscribers. When paid plans go live, billing will be handled by a third-party payment processor acting as Merchant of Record. We will not store your credit card or billing data. The processor and a link to their privacy policy will be named here before payments go live.

Security incidents

If we find that our servers have been breached, we will:

Make a public announcement.
To the extent possible, email affected users telling you if we suspect your data has been leaked.
Temporarily lock your password and send a reset link to your email.
Show you the options to delete your data or change how much data we store from your learning.

Your responsibility

We disclaim liability for harms you might incur if you share highly personal, identifying, confidential, legally challenging, restricted, or otherwise sensitive information with our service. Do not do this. You are responsible for keeping your communication with the service at a public level, as you would in a language class with a teacher and other students.