Privacy policy | MicroItalian

Who we are and what this policy covers

MicroItalian is operated by CDIAM Limited Liability Company (CDIAM LLC), incorporated in Delaware, United States. CDIAM LLC is responsible for the personal information described in this policy and is the data controller where that term applies. “We”, “us”, and “our” refer to CDIAM LLC operating MicroItalian.

This policy covers the MicroItalian website, account and membership features, learning exercises, optional speaking practice, and support conversations.

MicroItalian uses SubLearn’s shared account infrastructure. Your identity can therefore be connected across these services, while lesson access and membership depend on the service you use. This policy explains MicroItalian’s handling of your information; it does not describe every separate SubLearn feature.

Contact support@microitalian.com about this policy or your personal information. Include “Privacy request” in the subject so the team can identify your request.

Information we collect

The information depends on how you use the service. Reading a public explanation requires less information than creating an account, paying for membership, or submitting a recording.

Account information: your name, email address, password hash when you register with a password, sign-in provider identifier, optional profile picture, email-verification status, and records of account and consent actions.
Learning information: lessons opened or attempted, submitted answers, scores, completion state, practice settings, and interactions such as hints or replay where recorded. Browser storage can also keep unfinished answers and preferences.
Speaking information: audio you submit, the selected exercise and accent, recognized words, pronunciation scores, feedback, and processing status.
Payment information: subscription and transaction identifiers, plan, payment and refund status, billing details, and limited payment-method information supplied by Stripe. Payment details entered in Stripe’s checkout are handled by Stripe; our application does not store your full card number or security code.
Technical information: IP address, browser and device information, requested pages, timestamps, session or guest identifiers, and security or error information needed to deliver and protect the service.
Support information: your contact details, message, and any attachments you choose to send. Avoid including passwords, payment-card details, or sensitive information that is not needed to resolve your question.

If you choose Google sign-in, Google supplies your account identifier, name, email address and verification information, and profile picture when available. We use this information to create or authenticate your account and display your profile. Basic profile details and the Google identifier can remain in the shared account record.

The sign-in request uses basic identity, email, and profile permissions. It does not request Gmail, Google Contacts, Calendar, or Drive access. We do not receive your Google password.

We use Google profile information for account functions described here, not to target advertisements or train a general-purpose AI model. Service providers supporting those account functions may process it as described below.

You can review or remove the connection in your Google Account. Removing Google access does not itself delete information already stored in MicroItalian or cancel a paid subscription. Contact us to request deletion, and arrange another sign-in method first if you want to keep using your account.

Why we use information

We use account and learning information to provide the exercises you request, check answers, preserve eligible progress, authenticate access, and respond to support requests. Payment records let us manage membership, renewals, cancellations, and refunds.

Where European or UK data-protection law applies, providing requested account, exercise, support, and paid membership services generally relies on performing our contract with you or taking steps you request before a contract. Records required by tax, accounting, or other applicable law rely on legal obligations.

Security, fraud prevention, diagnosing faults, and protecting the service and its users are legitimate interests. These purposes involve necessary operational records, including account and billing events. We must balance these interests against your rights.

Optional browser usage analytics relies on your choice in the cookie notice. Optional recording begins only when you choose the speaking feature and grant the necessary microphone permission. Where consent is the legal basis, you may withdraw it for future processing without affecting earlier lawful processing.

If you do not provide information required for a particular feature, that feature may be unavailable. For example, we need an email address for an account and submitted audio to assess your speaking. You can still read public learning content.

Free dictation emails

If you ask for the next dictation by email on the dictation page, we store your email address, the wording you agreed to, the time you agreed and confirmed, which lessons we sent, and the ad or link that brought you (for example "reddit"). We only send the emails after you confirm your address from the first email.

You receive one short dictation a day for 7 days; the last email may offer the free trial. Every email has an unsubscribe link that stops them at once. We keep the record of your consent and unsubscribe so we can prove it and never email you again by mistake; ask support to delete it.

Your voice and speaking feedback

Speaking practice is optional. Your browser asks for microphone permission, and the exercise controls let you start and stop recording. When you submit a recording, we store it privately and send the audio, selected language or accent, and reference text where relevant to Microsoft Azure Speech for transcription or pronunciation assessment.

Recordings are assigned an expiry 24 hours after submission. An hourly cleanup task is configured to delete expired audio and clear the saved transcript field. Cleanup is a separate step from expiry, so removal may occur after the expiry time and can be delayed by processing or technical failures. You can also request earlier deletion from the speaking result controls.

Deleting a recording does not erase the entire speaking attempt. Scores, feedback, recognized word-level results, and practice history can remain. Ask us if you want those account records deleted as well. If the deletion control reports a problem, contact support rather than assuming removal succeeded.

MicroItalian does not use your recordings for voice cloning, identifying you by your voice, advertising, or training its own models. Azure’s published policy says it does not retain customer input for real-time transcription and pronunciation assessment. That statement concerns Microsoft’s processing; our own storage and learning records are described above.

Automated feedback can be inaccurate, particularly with background noise, recording problems, or speech patterns the model handles poorly. Scores support practice; they are not an official qualification or a decision about education, employment, or access to essential services.

Microsoft’s speech data and privacy information

Lesson coach and help assistant

When you press “Why was this wrong?” in a lesson or ask the help assistant a question, the text you typed, the sentence from the recording and — for the assistant, if you are signed in — a short summary of your account (your plan, the subjects of your open support requests and your last lesson) are sent to Google’s Gemini service — through our own gateway, or through OpenRouter (a US processor) when our gateway is unavailable — to produce the answer. We never send your name, email address or payment details.

We keep a count of these requests and what they cost, but not the text. A conversation with the assistant stays in your browser session for one hour and is deleted, unless you choose to send it to a person with a support request; it then stays with that request. Explanations the coach writes about a lesson sentence are kept for 30 days so the next learner with the same slip gets the same answer, without any link to you.

If you request a lesson, the topic or phrase you type is sent to our AI providers to write it and is kept with the lesson.

Your writing coach sorts the slips in your dictation answers on our own servers; nothing is sent to an AI service for that. If you ask for a full review, the slips it found, a few of your answers with the matching recording sentences and your recent writing-task sentences are sent to Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service, never your name or email address. The review, and the sentences you check in the daily writing task (your newest 60, with their corrections), are kept with your account so the coach can use them. They are in your data export and are deleted when you delete your account.

The coach and the assistant are optional. The word-by-word check, hints, replay, the help pages and the contact form work without them.

Cookies, browser storage, and analytics

Essential cookies support sign-in, request security, and guest progress. A random guest cookie is set for up to one year. Session and request-security cookies normally have a two-hour lifetime that can be renewed by activity. Your cookie choice is remembered for up to one year.

Local browser storage can keep practice preferences and unfinished answers until the application replaces them or you clear them. Tab storage also holds a session identifier. Clearing storage can sign you out or remove unfinished work and guest continuity; it does not delete learning records already held on our servers.

If you accept optional analytics, the site sends usage events such as page visits, selected navigation actions, and session duration to our service. We also use Amplitude for usage analytics and session replay, which reconstructs how a page was used from page structure and interactions such as clicks and scrolling. This can involve device and session identifiers, page addresses, browser information, and connection information.

In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, optional analytics starts only after you accept it. Elsewhere it is on by default, and you can decline it at any time with the controls below.

We also use the Google tag for Google Ads, to measure which of our ads lead to visits, free trials and memberships, and to show our ads again to people who visited. It can set advertising cookies and send page addresses, ad click identifiers and browser information to Google. It follows the same choice as optional analytics: it is off in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland until you accept, and declining turns it off anywhere. Google processes this data under its own privacy policy.

Amplitude session replay is configured to mask text and form fields. It is separate from speaking practice and does not record your microphone audio. Optional analytics can set additional cookies or browser identifiers. Declining optional analytics prevents initialization on a new page and stops future collection by the initialized analytics service; it does not retract events already sent.

Declining optional analytics does not stop essential account, exercise, payment, fraud-prevention, or security records. An analytics choice is separate from a request to delete information previously collected.

You can change your optional analytics choice using the controls below. Browser settings also let you remove or block cookies. Some interactive features will not work when required storage is blocked.

Cookie policy

Access depends on the task. Authorized people and providers supporting the service may process information needed for hosting, security, account access, payment handling, email delivery, support, and speaking feedback.

SubLearn provides shared account and application infrastructure. Cloudflare handles website delivery and security and can process connection and request information. Google handles Google sign-in when used. Stripe handles checkout, subscriptions, payment security, and refunds. Microsoft Azure Speech processes submitted speaking audio. Amplitude processes optional usage analytics and session replay after you allow optional analytics.

Providers may have their own responsibilities and privacy terms. For example, Stripe also processes information for payment-network, fraud-prevention, and legal purposes. Their policies describe those uses.

Information may also be disclosed when required by applicable law, to address fraud or security threats, or to establish or defend legal rights. A business transfer may involve relevant records, subject to applicable privacy obligations and notice requirements. This policy does not authorize unrestricted reuse of learning records.

International processing

The service and its providers may process information in countries other than the country where you live. Provider locations and global delivery networks mean that choosing a local website address does not guarantee that all processing stays in one country.

Where applicable law requires safeguards for an international transfer, the transfer must have a valid legal mechanism, such as an adequacy decision or approved contractual safeguards. Contact us to ask which destinations and safeguards apply to your information or to request information about the relevant safeguards.

How long information stays

Different records serve different purposes. Account details and learning history support your continuing use of the service. Cancelling membership stops future billing but does not itself delete your account or progress.

Retention for account, support, operational, analytics, and transaction records depends on the purpose, account status, unresolved support issues or disputes, security needs, provider retention settings, and applicable accounting or legal requirements. These records do not all have the 24-hour expiry assigned to speaking audio. Contact us for information about the retention setting or a deletion request for optional Amplitude data.

A deletion request may not cover information that must be retained to meet a legal obligation or resolve a dispute. Backup copies can remain until the applicable backup cycle replaces them. We will explain relevant limits when responding to a request; clearing your browser alone does not remove those records.

Your rights and how to use them

Depending on the law that applies to you, you may request access to your personal information, correction, deletion, a portable copy, or a restriction on processing. You may also object to processing based on legitimate interests and withdraw consent where processing depends on it.

Email support@microitalian.com from your account email if possible. Tell us what you want to access, correct, export, or delete and that your request concerns MicroItalian. Because accounts are shared with SubLearn, tell us whether your request concerns MicroItalian learning records or the whole shared account. We may need proportionate information to verify your identity and protect the account.

We respond within the time required by applicable law. Where the GDPR or UK GDPR applies, this is normally one month; an extension may be allowed for complex or multiple requests, with an explanation. Rights can have legal exceptions, which we will explain if relevant.

You may complain to your local data-protection authority where that right applies, including the authority in your country of residence, workplace, or the place of an alleged infringement. You do not have to contact us first to exercise that right.

Additional rights under US state laws

Where a US state privacy law applies to you and to our processing, you may have rights to know or access, correct, delete, or obtain a copy of personal information. Applicable laws may also provide opt-out rights concerning a sale, sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising, targeted advertising, or certain profiling, and protection against discrimination for exercising a privacy right.

Use support@microitalian.com to make a request, ask about an authorized agent, or appeal a denied request where an appeal right applies. Include “Privacy appeal” if you are asking for review of a prior decision. We may verify identity or an agent’s authority and will explain the outcome and any applicable complaint route.

Browser privacy signals are not a substitute for the optional analytics controls on this page. Those controls determine whether optional analytics starts. If you want information about a state-specific opt-out or previously collected information, contact us. The availability of legal rights depends on the law’s scope and does not mean every state privacy statute applies to every visitor.

Keeping information secure

The website uses HTTPS, password hashing, access controls, and private storage for submitted recordings. Keep your sign-in details private and contact us if you suspect someone else has accessed your account. No online service can promise complete security.

Please send only the information needed for a support or privacy request. We will not ask you to email your password or full payment-card details.

Children and younger learners

MicroItalian is designed for independent language learners. The shared SubLearn account terms require account holders to be at least 16. The service is not offered as an account service for children under 13, and a parent’s informal permission does not replace any legally required parental-consent process.

If you believe a child has provided personal information inappropriately, contact us with enough detail to identify the account. We can investigate and address the information under the applicable rules.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when the service, providers, or legal requirements change. The date at the top identifies this version. Where a change requires further notice or consent, publishing an updated page alone does not replace that requirement.