Privacy Policy

Effective 21 September 2026

The short version. DictionWise is made by Melearn Lab LLC in California. The app records audio when you ask it to and sends it to our server to be turned into text; the text comes back to your Mac. We keep an account for you and a measurement of each request — how long the recording was, how long it took, how many characters came back. When coaching is on, we keep the comments you receive — each one quotes the few words it is about and gives the fix — so the app can coach you, score your English, and show you your progress. That is the feature, and it is a switch. We do not keep the whole of what you dictate. We do not sell your personal information, we run no advertising today, and we never use what you say to train models — that last one has no switch, because it is simply how it works.

The Terms of Service are the agreement this sits inside.

1. Who we are, and what this covers

Melearn Lab LLC (“we”), a California limited liability company in the United States, makes DictionWise and is the controller of the personal information described here. This policy covers the DictionWise Mac app, the DictionWise service it talks to, and this website. Using DictionWise means accepting it; if you do not, please do not use the app. Questions, requests and complaints go to [email protected].

2. What we collect

Account information. DictionWise signs you in with Apple. We receive the identifier Apple issues for you and, if you choose to share them, your name and email address — which may be one of Apple’s private relay addresses. We store those, the token Apple gives us to keep your session valid, and when your account was created and last changed. If you redeem an invite code we store the code and what access it granted.

Device information. One record for each Mac you sign in on: a random device identifier, a hashed form of that device’s access token, the platform, the app version, and when it was first and last seen. The token itself is never stored in a form we can read back.

Your content. Audio you record in the app, and the text produced from it. If you switch on the optional feature that comments on your writing, that text is also passed to a language-model provider, and the comment is returned to your Mac. If you reply to a comment to ask about it, your question, the comment and the text it was about are passed the same way, and the answer comes back the same way. When coaching is on, we keep the comments you receive, to provide coaching, scores, and a record of your progress over time — that is what makes insights like “here is a mistake you often make” possible. A comment holds short quotes of what you said with the suggested fix — never the whole transcript, which we do not keep. You can switch coaching off in the app, and with it off nothing you say is kept; section 5 covers how long kept content lives and how to delete it.

Progress scores. If Progress scores are on, a de-identified copy of what you said — names, numbers, addresses and links stripped on your Mac first — is used to produce numbers: scores for grammar, vocabulary, coherence and fluency. We keep the numbers.

Context-aware accuracy. If this setting is on, the app may read limited, relevant content from the app you are dictating into — such as the text of the field at your cursor — at the moment you start dictating, to improve recognition of names and technical terms. It is sent with that request and is not stored. To keep improving, the app may also notice when you correct a dictation right after it is pasted and remember the corrected words; those words are kept for your account, you can see and remove them in the app’s settings, and each one expires on its own after a week unused.

Measurements of each request. For every request we write one row recording the time, the size and duration of the recording, how long processing took, how many characters the resulting text contained, which model served it, and whether it failed. For the optional comment feature: the same timings, how many characters were read, and whether a comment came back and of what sort. For a question you ask about a comment: the timings, how many characters your question and the answer contained, and how far into the exchange it was. These rows hold counts, never content — not your audio, not your words, not your questions.

Technical logs. Our hosting and network-security providers record the ordinary things a server records: IP address, time, the path requested, and the client making the request. They are used to keep the service up and to block abuse, and they age out on those providers’ schedules.

What you send us. Email you write to us, and whatever you put in it.

Bug reports you file. Testers we have enabled it for see a bug button in the app. Tapping it and sending a report gives us what you typed, a picture of the app’s screen at that moment, and the app’s state — which screen was open, whether the microphone and keyboard were set up, how long your most recent dictation was, and the app’s own recent log lines. The report shows you all of this before you send it, and you can remove the picture. Reports are kept until you delete your account, and are read only by us to fix what you reported.

3. What stays on your Mac

Your transcripts, the counts the app shows you, your settings and shortcuts, and — only if you turn that setting on — the audio itself, live on your Mac and are not uploaded to us. Deleting an entry, or clearing your history, deletes it there. The app needs macOS permissions for the microphone and for accessibility (that is how text reaches the app you are typing in); macOS controls those and you can withdraw them in System Settings at any time.

Each account keeps its own transcripts, and the app only ever shows the signed-in account’s. If you share a Mac, signing out puts your history away; signing back in brings it back, because signing out does not delete anything. Being plain about the limit: these are ordinary files in your macOS user account, so anyone who can already get into that macOS account — or into a backup of it — can read them, the same as with any other app’s data. Separate macOS user accounts have always been separate.

4. How we use it, and on what basis

To provide the service and return the result you asked for.
To run, maintain, debug and secure it, and to investigate misuse, fraud and abuse.
To enforce limits and check an account is entitled to what it requests.
To understand how the service is used in aggregate, and to measure, improve and develop it and new features.
To answer you when you write to us, and to tell beta users about the beta.
To comply with law and to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

We may produce aggregated or de-identified information from any of the above and keep and use it without the restrictions in this policy — it identifies nobody, and we will not try to re-identify it.

Model training. We do not use your audio, your transcripts or the comments you receive to train, fine-tune or evaluate models, and we do not build datasets from them. Nor do our providers: the speech-to-text provider does not train on what is submitted through its API, and every coaching request is routed only to model providers that have undertaken not to collect the text at all — that constraint is sent with the request, and a provider that will not accept it does not get the request. This is not a privacy mode you have to discover and switch on. It is the only mode. If we ever want to use customer content for training, it will be something you are asked to opt into, not something you have to catch us doing.

Legal bases (GDPR). Where the GDPR or UK GDPR applies, we rely on: performance of our agreement with you, for providing the service; our legitimate interests, for security, abuse prevention, measurement and improvement; your consent, where we ask for it; and compliance with legal obligations.

5. How long we keep things

We keep personal information only for as long as necessary for the purposes described in this policy, and then delete it or de-identify it. How long that is depends on the kind of information and why we hold it:

Audio passes through our server to the transcription provider. We do not keep it after the request it was recorded for is answered.
Text is kept only for as long as it takes to answer your request, unless coaching is on: then the comments you received — each with the short quote of what you said that it is about, and the fix — are kept for your account, to power coaching, scores and your progress record. The transcript itself is not kept. You can delete that record in the app at any time, switching coaching off stops anything further from being kept, and deleting your account deletes all of it.
Learned words (Context-aware accuracy) are kept for your account, expire on their own after a week unused, and can be removed in the app at any time.
Account, device, invite and measurement records are kept while your account exists and for a reasonable period afterwards for security, accounting and legal reasons. Deleting your account removes them.
Technical logs, including a record of the requests we make to our service providers, are kept for a limited period — generally no more than 30 days — and are removed sooner when you delete your learner record or your account. For most of those requests the log holds only their size and their timing. The wording we send is kept for three of them — the ones that sort, group and set practice on the comments you have already received — because what they are made of is those comments. The requests that carry what you said are logged without it.

6. Who else handles it

We use other companies to do work we do not do ourselves, and each receives only what it needs for its job, under its agreement with us:

Cloud hosting runs the service and stores the database — the account, device, invite and measurement records above.
A network-security provider sits in front of the service and sees request metadata: IP address, time, and the path requested.
A speech-to-text provider receives your audio to transcribe it. It does not train on it. It may hold it briefly — typically no more than 30 days — for its own abuse monitoring, and then deletes it.
A language-model provider receives the text for the optional comment feature, and your question if you ask one. We send the request with a constraint that routes it only to providers that do not retain or collect it, so there is no 30-day window here to speak of.
A payment processor (Stripe) takes your payment for paid plans on its own checkout page: it holds your card and billing details, charges renewals, and issues your receipts and invoices on our behalf, all under its own privacy policy. What comes back to us is described under Payments below.
Apple handles sign-in, and email reaches you through a mail provider.

We will tell you which specific providers we use if you ask.

We do not currently sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. DictionWise carries no advertising today; if we ever introduce analytics or advertising, we will update this policy first and provide any choice or opt-out the law requires. We may disclose information where the law requires it or to protect our rights, and we may transfer it as part of a merger, acquisition or sale of assets — in which case this policy keeps applying until you are told otherwise.

Payments. When you subscribe, checkout happens on Stripe’s page, not ours, and your card number never reaches us. Stripe holds your name, billing address, card and any tax id, and sends us only what we need to turn the subscription on — its own opaque ids for the subscription and customer, the plan and price, the status, and when the current period ends. We do not store your name, address, card details or tax id, and we do not use your email to match a payment to your account. Receipts, invoices, plan changes and cancellation are managed through Stripe’s billing portal, which the app opens for you.

7. Cookies

This website uses only the cookies it needs to work, and carries no advertising or analytics trackers today. The app authenticates with a token rather than a cookie, and our own administrative pages use a session cookie, which only we ever see. If we add analytics or similar technologies later, we will update this policy and, where the law requires it, ask for your consent.

8. Security

Traffic is encrypted in transit. Access tokens are stored hashed, credentials live outside the application, and administrative surfaces are gated separately from everything users touch. We hold no security certifications and claim none. No service can promise perfect security, and we do not.

9. Where your data is processed

In the United States, by us and by the providers in section 6. If you use DictionWise from outside the United States, you are asking us to process your information there, and we rely on appropriate safeguards for those transfers where the law requires them.

10. Your rights

In the app. The comment feature is a switch — off is off, and with it off your words never leave your Mac except to be transcribed. Progress scores and Context-aware accuracy are switches too, your coaching record and learned words can be deleted from the app, and keeping audio is a separate switch, off by default. Signing out revokes that Mac’s token. History clears from the app whenever you want, and you can delete your account from the app.

From us. Write to [email protected] to see what we hold about you, correct it, receive a copy in a portable format, restrict or object to a use, withdraw a consent, or delete your account and the data attached to it. We answer within 30 days.

EU, EEA, UK. You have the rights above as legal rights, and the right to complain to your data protection authority.

California. In the last twelve months we collected the categories in section 2 — identifiers (an Apple identifier, an email address that may be a relay address, device identifiers, IP address), your name if Apple shared it, internet and device activity (the measurement rows and technical logs), audio and its transcript, which we process but do not retain, the comments on it — which quote a few of your words and give the fix, and which we keep when coaching is on — the learned words described in section 2, and inferences about your English proficiency (the Progress scores). We collect them from you and from Apple when you sign in, for the purposes in section 4, and we disclose them only to the service providers in section 6. We have not sold or shared personal information, and we do not use or disclose sensitive personal information beyond what is needed to provide the service. You may ask us to know, correct or delete, and an authorised agent may ask for you. We will not treat you differently for asking.

11. Children

DictionWise is not for children. You must be at least 13 if you are in the United States and at least 16 elsewhere, and if you are under 18 you should have a parent or guardian’s permission. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone younger; tell us and we will delete it.

12. Other sites

Links from here to other companies are theirs, and their privacy practices are theirs. We are not responsible for them.

13. This is a private beta

The service is in active development and offered as it is. Features may change, and data held for the beta may be reset when the service changes. Keep your own copy of anything you cannot lose.

14. Changes

We may update this policy as the product changes; the effective date above moves when we do. If a change meaningfully reduces your rights or materially changes how we handle what you have already given us, we will tell the people in the beta by email or by a notice in the app. Continuing to use DictionWise after a change means you accept the updated policy.

15. Contact

Melearn Lab LLC, California, United States · [email protected]