Privacy Policy

Effective date: 5 August 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how ABAIR (PTY) LTD, trading as Abair (“Abair”, “we”, “us” or “our”), processes personal information when you use:

• Abair mobile applications available through Google Play or the Apple App Store;
• the Abair website at https://abair.app; and
• our support, contact and privacy-request services.

Different Abair applications may include different features, content, permissions and third-party services. Where a particular application does not contain a service or feature described in this Privacy Policy, the related section does not apply to that application.

1. WHO WE ARE

Legal entity: ABAIR (PTY) LTD
Trading name: Abair
Country: South Africa
Company registration number: 2026/184854/07

Registered address:
17 Milton Road
Chiltern Hills
Westville
KwaZulu-Natal
4091
South Africa

Contact email: [email protected]
Website: https://abair.app

For purposes of applicable data-protection law, ABAIR (PTY) LTD is the responsible party or data controller for personal information processed under our control.

2. OUR PRIVACY APPROACH

Abair applications are designed to minimise the personal information we collect and to use permissions only for features requested by the user.

Our current core learning applications:

• do not require an Abair account, username or password;
• primarily store learning progress, settings and preferences locally on the user’s device;
• do not operate an Abair-owned central database containing named individual learning profiles;
• may use pseudonymous analytics identifiers to understand app usage and improve performance;
• may use third-party services for analytics, advertising, purchases, subscriptions, entitlement management, cloud storage, content delivery, speech technology and app-store functionality; and
• request microphone access only in applications and activities that provide speaking or pronunciation features.

Using an Abair application does not automatically mean that every service described in this Privacy Policy is active. Services may vary by application, platform, country, device, operating-system settings and app version.

3. INFORMATION STORED LOCALLY ON YOUR DEVICE

The following information may be stored locally within an Abair application:

• lesson, section and course progress;
• completed activities and quiz results;
• vocabulary, flashcard or story progress;
• saved cards or saved stories;
• streaks, experience points, levels, rewards or in-app balances;
• selected language, theme, accessibility and application settings;
• notification preferences;
• premium or purchase-status information needed by the interface;
• temporary speech-recognition results used to evaluate an answer;
• locally cached images, audio, timing files and other educational content; and
• other information needed to provide the learning experience.

This information generally remains on your device and is not uploaded to an Abair-owned named user-profile database.

Local information may be lost if you uninstall the application, clear its storage, reset or replace your device, or use a different device. Restoring a purchase does not necessarily restore locally stored learning progress.

4. INFORMATION YOU PROVIDE TO US

4.1 Support and email communications

When you contact us, we may receive:

• your name;
• your email address;
• the application and language you are using;
• your device, operating system or platform;
• the contents of your message;
• screenshots, recordings, documents or other files you voluntarily provide;
• transaction references or anonymous service identifiers you provide for support; and
• information reasonably required to investigate and respond to your request.

Do not send passwords, complete payment-card details, identification documents or other unnecessary sensitive information.

4.2 Website contact form

If you submit the contact form on our website, we process the name, email address and message you provide for the purpose of responding to your enquiry.

4.3 Privacy and deletion requests

If you make a privacy, access, correction or deletion request, we may ask for limited information needed to locate relevant records or verify that the request relates to you.

Because our core applications do not use Abair accounts, we may not always be able to link third-party records to a particular person without an app-store transaction reference, pseudonymous application identifier or other relevant information.

5. TECHNICAL WEBSITE AND NETWORK INFORMATION

When you visit abair.app or request cloud-hosted application content, our hosting, security, storage and content-delivery providers may automatically process limited technical information, including:

• IP address;
• browser, device and operating-system information;
• application version and language;
• requested page, image, audio file, story, card or other resource;
• request date and time;
• referring page or network information;
• HTTP headers and cache information;
• diagnostic, reliability and performance information;
• security, abuse-prevention and fraud-prevention signals; and
• cookie or session information needed for the website to operate.

We use this information to deliver the website and application content, cache files, prevent abuse, diagnose technical problems, maintain availability and protect our systems.

Our website may use essential cookies or similar technologies required for security and functionality. If we activate non-essential analytics, advertising or measurement cookies on the website, we will provide any notice or consent controls required by applicable law.

6. APPLICATION ANALYTICS

Certain Abair applications use Google Firebase and Google Analytics for Firebase to understand how the applications are used, measure feature performance and improve stability, reliability and design.

Depending on the application configuration, Firebase Analytics may process information such as:

• a pseudonymous app-instance identifier;
• application package or bundle identifier;
• application version;
• device model and operating-system information;
• platform and language;
• country, region or approximate location derived from technical information such as IP address;
• first launch, app open, app update and session information;
• screen views, button interactions and other application events;
• purchase or subscription events generated through the application or app store;
• limited diagnostic and performance-related information; and
• advertising identifiers where available, permitted and enabled by the platform and application configuration.

Abair does not require users to provide their name or email address to use the core learning applications, and we do not intentionally send microphone recordings or the content of spoken answers to Firebase Analytics.

Analytics data is used to:

• understand aggregate usage and engagement;
• identify popular or underused features;
• measure the effectiveness of application changes;
• diagnose technical and performance issues;
• improve user interface, lessons and content; and
• understand purchase and subscription activity.

Users may be able to limit certain analytics or advertising identifiers through device, Google or Apple privacy settings. Availability of these controls depends on the device, operating system and region.

7. ADVERTISING INFORMATION

Certain Abair applications may display advertisements through third-party advertising providers such as Unity Ads.

Depending on the application, platform, device settings, age settings, region, consent choices and permissions, an advertising provider may process:

• advertising identifiers;
• IP address and approximate location derived from the IP address;
• device and operating-system information;
• application version and language;
• ad impressions, clicks and interactions;
• diagnostic information; and
• fraud-prevention and security signals.

Where consent or platform permission is legally required for personalised advertising, cross-application tracking or related processing, the relevant permission or consent mechanism should be presented before that processing occurs.

Users may be able to manage advertising choices through device settings, Google account settings, Apple privacy settings or the advertising provider’s privacy controls.

Abair does not sell or rent personal information.

8. PURCHASES, SUBSCRIPTIONS AND ENTITLEMENTS

Certain Abair applications may offer:

• one-time purchases;
• lifetime access;
• consumable virtual items;
• monthly or yearly subscriptions;
• promotional offers or trials; or
• other digital products displayed within the applicable app store.

Purchases are processed by Apple or Google. Abair does not receive or store complete payment-card information.

The applicable app store and, where used, RevenueCat may process:

• purchase and subscription history;
• product identifiers;
• transaction, receipt or purchase-token information;
• subscription, renewal and entitlement status;
• refund, cancellation, billing-retry or grace-period status;
• country, currency or store region;
• a pseudonymous application-user identifier;
• device, application and platform information; and
• information required to validate purchases, prevent fraud and restore entitlements.

This information is used to:

• provide purchased content and premium features;
• validate transactions;
• manage subscriptions and entitlements;
• prevent duplicate or fraudulent access;
• support restore-purchase functionality; and
• respond to purchase-related support requests.

Purchase restoration may restore an entitlement but may not restore locally stored learning progress, streaks, coins or settings.

9. CLOUD-HOSTED IMAGES, AUDIO AND EDUCATIONAL CONTENT

Certain Abair applications retrieve images, cards, story covers, lesson audio, story audio, word-timing files and other educational content from cloud storage and content-delivery services.

Current providers may include:

• Cloudflare, including Cloudflare R2 and Cloudflare’s content-delivery network; and
• Microsoft Azure, including Azure storage and related infrastructure.

When an application requests this content, the provider may process limited technical request information such as:

• IP address;
• requested file, object or URL;
• request date and time;
• device, browser or application information;
• cache and delivery information;
• diagnostic logs; and
• security, abuse-prevention or fraud-prevention information.

Cloud-hosted educational content supplied by Abair is not the same as user-uploaded content. Current core learning applications do not require users to upload their personal photographs, videos, documents or voice recordings to Cloudflare or Microsoft Azure in order to access ordinary lessons, stories or flashcards.

10. MICROSOFT AZURE SPEECH AND SYNTHETIC VOICES

Certain Abair applications use Microsoft Azure Speech text-to-speech technology to create natural-sounding lesson narration, story narration, words, sentences and pronunciation examples.

In current implementations, much of this audio is generated in advance by Abair and stored as audio files for later delivery to the application. Text or structured speech-synthesis instructions used to create the audio may be processed by Microsoft Azure when the audio is generated.

The resulting educational audio may then be stored or delivered through Microsoft Azure, Cloudflare or another cloud provider used by the relevant application.

The synthetic voices are used to improve listening practice and pronunciation examples. They do not represent a live human speaker responding to the user.

At the effective date of this Privacy Policy, the current Afrikaans application uses Microsoft Azure Speech for text-to-speech audio. It does not intentionally send users’ live microphone recordings to Microsoft Azure for recognition. Live speaking exercises are handled as described in Section 11.

11. MICROPHONE ACCESS, SPEAKING EXERCISES AND SPEECH RECOGNITION

11.1 When microphone access is requested

Certain Abair applications include speaking, pronunciation or “speak the sentence” exercises. When a user chooses to use one of these activities, the application may request permission to access the device microphone.

Microphone access is optional and is used only for the speaking feature. If permission is denied or later withdrawn, speaking exercises may not function, but other learning features should remain available.

The application does not intentionally activate the microphone in the background. Microphone access is intended to begin only after the user starts or holds the speaking control and to stop when the user releases or ends the activity.

11.2 How speech recognition works

The application may use speech-recognition functionality provided by the device, operating system or an installed speech-recognition service.

Depending on the device and its settings:

• recognition may occur on the device;
• audio may be streamed to Google, Apple or another speech-recognition provider selected or supplied by the platform;
• the provider may return recognised text, partial results, confidence information or error information; and
• the provider may process information according to its own terms, privacy policy and device settings.

On Android, the speech-recognition service may transmit audio to remote servers unless an on-device recogniser is available and used. On Apple devices, speech-recognition audio may be processed on the device or transmitted to Apple depending on the device, language, operating-system capability and user settings.

11.3 How Abair uses the result

The application uses the recognised text or result to compare the user’s spoken answer with the expected lesson answer, provide feedback and continue the exercise.

Abair does not intentionally:

• record microphone audio continuously;
• listen when the speaking activity is not active;
• use microphone audio for advertising;
• sell microphone recordings;
• create biometric voiceprints;
• maintain an Abair-owned central library of users’ voice recordings; or
• upload microphone recordings or recognised speech to Cloudflare, Firebase Analytics, RevenueCat or an Abair-owned learning-profile database.

Recognised text and intermediate speech results may be held temporarily in application memory and may be displayed or used locally to evaluate the answer. They are cleared, replaced or discarded as the activity continues or the application session ends, subject to normal device and operating-system behaviour.

11.4 Permission controls

Users can deny or withdraw microphone permission at any time through device settings.

On Android, microphone permission can generally be managed through:
Settings > Apps > [the relevant Abair application] > Permissions > Microphone.

On Apple devices, speech-recognition and microphone permissions can generally be managed through:
Settings > Privacy & Security > Microphone; and
Settings > Privacy & Security > Speech Recognition.

Exact menu names may differ by device and operating-system version.

12. NOTIFICATIONS

Abair applications may offer learning reminders and notifications.

Where reminders are scheduled locally, they are generated on the user’s device and Abair does not receive a remote push-notification token for those reminders.

If a particular application version uses remote push notifications, the platform or notification provider may process a device token and technical information required to deliver the notification. The relevant disclosure will apply to that application version.

Users can disable notifications through the application or device settings.

13. INFORMATION WE DO NOT NORMALLY COLLECT DIRECTLY

Our current core applications do not normally require or directly collect:

• Abair account credentials;
• complete payment-card details;
• precise GPS location;
• contact lists;
• call logs or SMS messages;
• health or fitness information;
• government identification numbers;
• fingerprints, facial-recognition templates or voiceprints;
• a central Abair-hosted named record of individual lesson activity;
• user photographs, videos or documents for ordinary learning features; or
• background microphone recordings.

This does not prevent app stores, analytics providers, advertising providers, cloud providers, speech-recognition providers or purchase providers from processing limited information under their own terms and privacy policies when their services are used.

14. HOW WE USE PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may process personal information to:

• provide, maintain and improve the applications and website;
• store or restore application settings and purchases;
• deliver requested images, audio, lessons, cards and stories;
• provide speaking and pronunciation activities;
• process recognised speech results for the active exercise;
• process and validate purchases;
• manage subscriptions and premium entitlements;
• display and measure advertisements where applicable;
• measure application usage and feature performance;
• respond to support, business and privacy enquiries;
• diagnose crashes, errors, latency and technical problems;
• prevent fraud, abuse and security incidents;
• comply with legal, accounting and regulatory obligations;
• establish, exercise or defend legal claims; and
• improve the reliability, speed, design and usability of our services.

15. LEGAL BASES FOR PROCESSING

Where applicable law requires a legal basis, we rely on one or more of the following:

Performance of a contract:
To provide the application, requested learning functionality, purchased content, subscriptions, entitlements or support.

Legitimate interests:
To operate, secure, analyse, troubleshoot and improve our services, prevent fraud and respond to enquiries, provided those interests are not overridden by users’ rights.

Consent:
Where required for microphone access, speech recognition, personalised advertising, tracking, non-essential cookies, notifications or other optional processing.

Legal obligations:
To comply with tax, accounting, regulatory, fraud-prevention and lawful-request obligations.

Protection of legal rights:
To establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

Users may withdraw consent at any time through available application, device or privacy controls. Withdrawal does not affect processing that occurred lawfully before withdrawal.

16. HOW WE SHARE INFORMATION

We may disclose limited information:

• to service providers supporting analytics, advertising, app-store purchases, subscriptions, cloud storage, hosting, content delivery, speech recognition, text-to-speech, security, email and website operation;
• to Apple or Google where required for app distribution, purchases, platform services, permissions or speech recognition;
• to RevenueCat where used for entitlement and subscription management;
• to Microsoft and Cloudflare where required to generate, store, secure or deliver content;
• when required by law, court order or lawful governmental request;
• to protect the rights, safety, property or security of Abair, our users or another person;
• in connection with a merger, financing, acquisition, restructuring or sale of all or part of the business; or
• with professional advisers such as lawyers, accountants or auditors where reasonably necessary.

We require service providers acting under our instructions to process information only for authorised purposes and to apply appropriate security measures.

A provider may also act as an independent controller for certain platform, account, fraud-prevention, analytics or legal purposes. In those cases, its own privacy policy applies.

17. THIRD-PARTY SERVICES

Depending on the particular application, platform or website feature, third-party services may include the following.

17.1 Google Firebase and Google Analytics for Firebase

Used in certain applications for application analytics, usage measurement, event reporting and understanding application performance.

Information may include app-instance identifiers, device and application information, app interactions, session information, approximate location derived from technical information, purchase events and related analytics data.

Privacy and security information:
https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy

Google Privacy Policy:
https://policies.google.com/privacy

17.2 Google Play and Android platform services

Used for application distribution, updates, purchases, subscriptions, licensing, reviews, platform services and, where available, Android speech recognition.

Android speech recognition may process microphone audio on the device or through a remote speech-recognition service, depending on device capabilities and settings.

Google Privacy Policy:
https://policies.google.com/privacy

Google Play Terms:
https://play.google.com/about/play-terms/

17.3 Apple App Store and Apple platform services

Used for application distribution, updates, purchases, subscriptions, reviews, platform services and, where available, Apple speech recognition.

Apple speech recognition may process audio on the device or transmit audio and related information to Apple, depending on device capabilities, language and privacy settings.

Apple Privacy Policy:
https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/

Siri, Dictation and Speech Recognition privacy information:
https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/ask-siri-dictation/

17.4 RevenueCat

Used in certain application builds for purchase validation, subscription management, entitlement management, customer status and restore-purchase functionality.

17.5 Microsoft Azure

Used for Microsoft Azure Speech text-to-speech, generation of natural educational voices, cloud storage, audio storage, content delivery and related infrastructure.

At the effective date, the current Afrikaans application uses Azure for generated educational audio and does not intentionally send live user microphone recordings to Azure Speech for recognition.

Microsoft Privacy Statement:
https://privacy.microsoft.com/privacystatement

Azure Speech privacy and security information:
https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ai-foundry/responsible-ai/speech-service/text-to-speech/data-privacy-security

17.6 Cloudflare

Used for Cloudflare R2 object storage, content delivery, caching, network performance and security. Cloudflare may deliver application images, cards, story covers, audio or other downloadable content.

When a user requests content, Cloudflare may process IP address, requested resource, timestamps, technical request information, cache information and security signals.

17.7 Unity Ads

Used in certain applications for advertising, ad measurement, security and fraud prevention.

17.8 Hostinger

Used to host and operate the Abair website and related website infrastructure.

Each provider processes information according to its own legal role, terms and privacy policy.

The inclusion of a provider in this Privacy Policy does not mean that the provider is present or active in every Abair application.

18. DATA RETENTION

We retain information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

Our general retention approach is:

Locally stored learning data:
Until the user clears the application’s data, uses an available reset function, resets the device or uninstalls the application.

Temporary speech results:
Normally only for the active exercise or application session. Abair does not intentionally retain users’ microphone recordings in an Abair-owned central database. The operating-system or speech-recognition provider may apply its own retention practices.

Support and contact enquiries:
Generally up to 24 months after the matter is resolved, unless a longer period is required for legal, fraud-prevention or dispute purposes.

Website, cloud and security logs:
Generally up to 90 days where controlled by Abair, unless a longer period is required for security, abuse prevention, troubleshooting or legal obligations. Provider-controlled logs may be retained according to the provider’s settings and policies.

Analytics information:
According to our configured Firebase or analytics retention settings and the provider’s applicable terms. Analytics information is generally associated with pseudonymous identifiers rather than an Abair account.

Purchase and transaction records under Abair’s control:
For the period required to provide entitlements and comply with accounting, tax, fraud-prevention and legal requirements.

Privacy-request records:
For a reasonable period needed to demonstrate compliance and manage follow-up requests.

Third-party records:
According to the applicable provider’s retention policy, user settings and legal obligations.

We may retain information for longer when required by law, necessary to resolve a dispute or required to protect legal rights.

19. DATA DELETION AND USER CONTROLS

Users can delete locally stored learning data by:

• using an in-application reset option where available;
• clearing the application’s storage through device settings; or
• deleting the application from the device.

Users can withdraw microphone permission through device privacy settings. This prevents future microphone access unless permission is granted again.

Users may request deletion of personal information held directly by Abair by contacting:

[email protected]

Please include the relevant application, platform and a description of the information or request. Do not send complete payment-card details.

Because the core applications do not use Abair accounts, Abair may hold little or no information that can be linked directly to a particular user.

Deleting the application does not automatically delete:

• app-store purchase or subscription records;
• records independently controlled by Apple, Google, RevenueCat or another provider;
• fraud-prevention or legally required transaction records;
• support emails previously sent to Abair; or
• analytics information already aggregated or de-identified.

Users may need to use the privacy controls or request mechanisms provided by the relevant third party.

Additional Abair deletion instructions are available at:

Data Deletion

20. CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

Abair applications are not directed to children under 13 unless a particular application is expressly designed, configured and distributed for a younger audience in compliance with applicable requirements.

Users under 13 should not use an Abair application unless a parent or legal guardian has reviewed and permitted the use of that application and such use is lawful in the user’s country.

We do not knowingly request personal information directly from children under 13.

Speaking activities should be used only with the user’s or guardian’s permission where required. Parents and guardians can disable microphone access through device settings.

If you believe that a child has provided personal information to Abair, contact us so that we can investigate and take appropriate action.

Parents and guardians should also review the privacy controls made available by Apple, Google, Firebase and any advertising provider used in the relevant application.

21. YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• request access to personal information;
• request correction of inaccurate information;
• request deletion of information;
• object to or restrict certain processing;
• withdraw consent;
• request information about recipients or categories of recipients;
• request a portable copy of certain information;
• complain to an applicable regulator; and
• receive information about international transfers.

Because Abair does not maintain a central account or named learning-profile database for its core applications, we may hold little or no information that can be linked directly to you.

To exercise a right, email:

[email protected]

We may need to request limited information to verify or locate the relevant information. We will not require more information than reasonably necessary.

South African users may also lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator:

Complaints

22. INTERNATIONAL PROCESSING

ABAIR (PTY) LTD is based in South Africa.

Our service providers may process information in South Africa, the European Economic Area, the United States or other countries where they or their infrastructure operate.

Cloud content may be delivered through globally distributed networks, including Cloudflare’s network. Firebase, Microsoft, Apple, Google, RevenueCat, Unity and other providers may process information in multiple jurisdictions.

Where required, we use or rely on appropriate legal and contractual safeguards for international processing. Service providers may also rely on adequacy decisions, contractual safeguards or other lawful transfer mechanisms applicable to them.

23. DATA SECURITY

We use reasonable organisational and technical safeguards appropriate to the nature of the information we process.

These may include:

• access controls;
• service-provider security measures;
• encrypted transmission where supported;
• secure cloud configuration;
• software and dependency updates;
• backups;
• monitoring;
• minimisation of stored information; and
• restricting microphone use to user-initiated speaking features.

No application, device, website, speech-recognition service, cloud provider or transmission method can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Users should protect their devices with a screen lock, install operating-system and application updates, use official app-store versions and avoid sharing sensitive information through support messages.

If we become aware of a reportable security compromise, we will take appropriate steps under applicable law, including notification to affected individuals or regulators where required.

24. LINKS TO OTHER SERVICES

Our applications and website may link to app stores, social networks, support pages or other third-party services.

We do not control the independent privacy practices of those services. Review their privacy policies before providing information to them.

25. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our applications, website, permissions, service providers, legal obligations or business operations.

The effective date at the top identifies the latest version.

Where legally required or where a change is material, we may provide additional notice through the application, website or app-store listing.

26. CONTACT US

For privacy questions, deletion requests or complaints:

ABAIR (PTY) LTD
Trading as Abair

Registered address:
Chiltern Hills
Westville
KwaZulu-Natal
4091
South Africa

Company registration number: 2026/184854/07
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://abair.app