Ink Garden

Privacy Policy

Ink Garden: Learn Chinese · iOS app

Last updated: 28 October 2026

In short: Ink Garden does not collect your personal data. There is no account, no sign-up, no advertising and no analytics. Your learning progress stays on your device — and, if you use iCloud, in your own private iCloud account that we cannot read. We operate no servers, so there is nowhere for your data to be sent.

1. Who we are

Ink Garden is published by Ding Qiao, an individual developer based in Beijing, China (the “Developer”, “we”, “us”). This policy explains what happens to information when you use the Ink Garden: Learn Chinese app (the “App”).

Contact for any privacy question: inkgarden2026@163.com

2. Information we do not collect

We do not collect, request, store or transmit any of the following:

Your name, email address, phone number or postal address
An account, username or password — the App has no login of any kind
Your location
Your device identifier, advertising identifier (IDFA) or fingerprinting data
Usage analytics, session recordings, heat maps or crash reports sent to us
Your contacts, photos, calendar or files

We have no servers and no database. There is no technical path by which your learning data could reach us.

3. Information stored on your device

The App keeps the following on your iPhone, inside the App’s own storage:

Which lessons you have completed, and when you studied
Characters you have learned, and your review schedule for them
Answers you got wrong, so the App can bring them back for practice
Your app settings (sound, text size and similar preferences)
Whether you have unlocked the full course (see section 5)

This information never leaves your device unless you have iCloud enabled (section 4). Deleting the App deletes it permanently.

4. iCloud sync (optional)

If you are signed in to iCloud on your iPhone and iCloud is enabled for the App, your learning progress is also written to your private iCloud key-value store, an Apple service tied to your own Apple ID. This is what lets your progress follow you to another device.

The data passes from your device to Apple’s iCloud servers under your Apple ID and is governed by Apple’s Privacy Policy. It is a few kilobytes of progress values — no personal information of any kind. We never receive a copy and have no way to read it.

To stop syncing or remove the synced copy:

Turn off iCloud for Ink Garden at Settings › [your name] › iCloud › Apps Using iCloud, or
Delete the synced data at Settings › [your name] › iCloud › Manage Account Storage

If iCloud is off, the App works exactly the same — your progress simply stays on one device.

5. Purchases

The full course is sold as a one-time in-app purchase. All payments are processed by Apple through the App Store. We never see or receive your name, card number, billing address or any other payment detail.

The App receives only what Apple’s StoreKit provides: confirmation that a purchase is valid for your Apple ID, so it can unlock the course. Restoring a purchase on a new device works the same way.

Refunds are handled entirely by Apple. Request one at reportaproblem.apple.com.

6. Microphone and speech recognition

Some lessons include a speaking step. When — and only when — you start that step, the App asks for microphone access and listens to the character you say, so it can tell you whether you said it correctly.

Recognition is performed on your device using Apple’s Speech framework, with on-device recognition required. The App does not send audio to us or to any server.
The recording is used for that single answer and is not stored, not saved to your photo library, and not shared.
If you never start a speaking step, the microphone is never accessed.
You can revoke microphone access at any time in Settings › Ink Garden. The rest of the App keeps working; only the speaking step stops.

7. No third-party services

The App contains no advertising SDK, no analytics SDK, no attribution or tracking SDK, and no social login. It makes no network requests of its own. All lesson content, audio and artwork are bundled inside the App.

As the App’s publisher we can see the aggregate, anonymised sales and download reports that Apple provides to every developer in App Store Connect. Those reports contain no individual user data.

8. Children

The App is intended for adult learners and is not directed at children under 13. Because we collect no personal information from anyone, we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

9. Your rights

Privacy laws such as the GDPR and the CCPA give you the right to access, correct, export or delete the personal data a company holds about you, and to object to its processing.

We hold no personal data about you, so there is nothing on our side to access, correct or delete. Any data the App creates belongs to you and sits on your device or in your own iCloud account, where you control it directly using the steps in sections 3 and 4.

10. Data retention

On your device: kept until you delete the App, or use Settings › Erase everything inside the App.
In iCloud: kept until you delete the App’s iCloud data, as described in section 4.
On our side: nothing is retained, because nothing is received.

11. Changes to this policy

If the App’s behaviour changes in a way that affects privacy, this page will be updated and the date at the top revised. Material changes will also be noted in the App’s release notes. Continuing to use the App after an update means you accept the revised policy.

12. Contact

Questions about this policy or about privacy in the App:
inkgarden2026@163.com