Privacy Policy

Effective September 27, 2026

This policy explains what information Lalia Cafe collects, why, who helps us process it, and the choices you have. It applies to the Lalia Cafe website at www.laliacafe.comand the Lalia Cafe apps for iOS and Android (together, "Lalia Cafe" or "the app"). Lalia Cafe is operated by Abukar Abukar ("we", "us"). Questions: abukarshegow@gmail.com.

1. Information we collect

Account information

• Email address - identifies your account and links it to your subscription.
• Password - if you sign up with email and password. We store only a salted, one-way hash of it (scrypt), never the password itself.
• Google sign-in (website only)- if you choose "Continue with Google", Google (through its Firebase Authentication service) confirms your identity and gives us your verified email address. We don't receive your Google password, contacts or other Google account data.
• The date your account was created and how you signed up.

Subscription information

Your plan, subscription status (for example active or in a free trial), the date it renews or ends, and the identifiers the billing provider gives us to keep your subscription in sync - such as a Stripe customer and subscription ID, or an App Store or Google Play transaction identifier. We do not receive or store your card number or other payment details.

Usage information

• Daily talk time- how many seconds of live tutoring you've used today, so we can apply your plan's daily allowance. These counters expire automatically after two days.
• Service usage records - for each request to our AI features we record which feature was used (for example live lesson, word lookup or article narration), the AI model, the amount of processing used (token counts), the resulting cost, and the time, linked to your account email. We keep monthly totals per account, daily totals for 90 days, a rolling list of the most recent 300 requests across all users, and the last time each account was active. These records contain no lesson content, audio or text - only counts. We use them to run the service, enforce fair-use limits and understand our costs.
• Abuse-prevention counters- short-lived daily counters, keyed to your account or, if you're not signed in, your IP address, that cap how often features such as sign-in attempts or word lookups can be used. They expire after two days.

Voice and audio

• Live lessons.When you start a lesson and speak, audio from your microphone is streamed directly from your device to Google's Gemini Live API, which generates the tutor's spoken replies and a written transcript of both sides. We use a short-lived access token so the connection goes straight to Google. We do not record, receive or store your voice.
• Pronunciation practice. When you read an article aloud to check your pronunciation, the recording is sent through our server to Google Gemini to be transcribed and scored. It is not saved by us.
• On some browsers, live word-by-word feedback while you read uses your browser's built-in speech recognition, which is provided and governed by your browser or operating system vendor.
• We ask for microphone permission only to provide these features. You can turn it off at any time in your device or browser settings.

Text you send to AI features

To provide lessons and reading tools, the relevant text is sent to Google Gemini for processing: the words and sentences you look up, lesson transcript lines to translate, your answers to comprehension questions, topics you ask articles to be written about, your name (to show it in another alphabet), and the lesson instructions for the tutor, which include the name, languages, level, learning goals and recent lesson notes you have entered in the app so the tutor can personalise your lesson. Some results, such as word definitions and comprehension questions, are cached on our servers so they can be reused; the cache is keyed by the text itself, not by who asked.

Generated narration

Audio narration of reading articles is generated by Google Gemini and stored on Vercel Blob storage so it can be replayed without generating it again. It contains only the article being read aloud - no information about you.

Content reports

If you report AI-generated content, we store the content you reported, the reason, any note you add, the time, and your account email if you're signed in, so we can review it.

Technical information

Like any website, our hosting provider (Vercel) receives your IP address, browser or device type and the pages or endpoints requested, and keeps short-lived logs for security and troubleshooting. We use a single first-party cookie to keep you signed in (it lasts up to 30 days). We do not use advertising or analytics cookies.

2. Information stored only on your device

Most of your learning data never leaves your device except when it is sent to Google Gemini as described above. It is kept in the app's local storage and is not uploaded to or backed up on our servers:

• Your name, the languages you're learning and speak, level, learning goals and app settings.
• Lesson history and summaries, and transcripts of your last 10 lessons per language.
• Vocabulary, flashcards, review progress, reading history, saved articles and any custom news feeds you add.

Because this data lives on your device, it doesn't follow you to another device, and it is erased from the device when you sign out or delete your account there. Uninstalling the app or clearing your browser's site data also removes it.

3. How we use information

• To create and secure your account and keep you signed in.
• To provide lessons, translations, word lookups, articles, narration and other features.
• To check your subscription and apply your plan's daily tutoring allowance.
• To prevent abuse, fraud and excessive use, and to keep the service reliable.
• To understand and manage the cost of running the service.
• To review reports about AI-generated content.
• To respond to you when you contact us.

We do not use your information for advertising, we do not build advertising profiles, and we do not sell or rent your personal information to anyone.

4. Service providers

We share information only with the providers that run parts of the service for us, and only what each needs:

Each provider processes data under its own terms and privacy policy. Payment providers collect your payment details directly; we never see them. The app also loads country flag images from the flagcdn.com image service and article images directly from the news publishers whose articles you read, which means those services receive your IP address when the images load. Links to an article's original source open that publisher's website, which has its own privacy policy.

We may also disclose information if required by law, or to protect the rights, safety or security of our users, the public or the service.

5. How long we keep information

• Account and subscription information - until you delete your account. Subscription records otherwise expire about 13 months after they were last updated.
• Daily talk-time and abuse-prevention counters - about two days.
• Service usage records - daily totals for 90 days and monthly per-account totals and last-active time until you delete your account, when they are erased. A rolling log of the 300 most recent requests across all users is overwritten automatically, usually within days.
• Store subscription link- if you subscribed through the App Store or Google Play, a record linking the store's transaction ID or purchase token to your email so renewals reach your account; it is erased when you delete your account and otherwise expires about 13 months after its last renewal.
• Content reports - one year.
• Live-lesson audio - never stored by us.

6. Deleting your account and data

You can delete your account at any time, from inside the app (Youtab > Delete account), on the website (sign in at laliacafe.com > You > Delete account), or by emailing us. Deletion permanently removes your account, your subscription record and your talk-time counters from our servers, cancels any website (Stripe) subscription and deletes your Stripe customer record, and erases the learning data stored on that device. Full details, including what is kept, are on our account deletion page.

Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription bought through the App Store or Google Play - cancel it in your Apple or Google Play subscription settings so you aren't billed again.

7. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or receive a copy of your personal information, to object to or restrict certain processing, and to withdraw consent. You can exercise most of these directly in the app (edit your settings, sign out, delete your account). For anything else, email abukarshegow@gmail.comfrom the email address on your account and we'll respond within 30 days. You also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

If you're in the European Economic Area or the UK, we process your information to perform our contract with you (providing the service you signed up for), for our legitimate interests (keeping the service secure, preventing abuse, managing costs), and to comply with legal obligations. Our providers may process data in the United States and other countries; where required, they use appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses.

8. Children

Lalia Cafe is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (or the minimum age required in your country). If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

9. Security

All connections to Lalia Cafe use HTTPS encryption. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes, sign-in sessions use signed, HTTP-only cookies, and the AI provider key never leaves our servers (live lessons use short-lived tokens). No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and limit what we keep.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We'll change the effective date above, and for significant changes we'll let you know in the app or by email before they take effect.

11. Contact

Abukar Abukar, operator of Lalia Cafe
Email: abukarshegow@gmail.com