Vanko — Privacy Policy
The short version: Vanko teaches children aged 4 to 8 to read Vietnamese, and everything it knows about a child stays on the device. There is no account and no sign-in, and we never ask for a child's name, photo or location. Nothing about your child leaves the device unless a parent agrees to the anonymous statistics, and even then nothing identifies the child.
There are no ads and no third-party analytics or advertising code in the app. The voice that reads to the child is synthetic, made in advance and checked. If a parent turns on "Hear yourself", the child's voice is recorded only while the child holds the button, played back once, and deleted: it is never saved and never sent. If a parent also downloads the experimental listener, the phone itself checks one word the child reads aloud, and that recording is deleted the same way. A purchase is handled by the App Store or Google Play, and only a parent can start one, behind the parental gate.
1. Who we are
Vanko is published by BrotherAI. If you have a question about this policy or about your child's information, write to brotheraicompany@gmail.com. We answer every message.
Vanko is made for children aged 4 to 8, to be set up and looked after by a parent or another adult who cares for the child ("you" in this policy).
2. What the app keeps on the device
The app saves the following in its own storage on the phone or tablet. We cannot see it, and we keep no copy of it.
| What | Why it exists |
|---|---|
| Each child's profile: the animal the child picked, their age in years, how they learn (with the class, before school, or abroad), the class lesson if you set it, the voice (Northern or Southern) and the pace. No name. | So each child follows their own path and hears the right voice. |
| Each child's progress: the lessons done, how well each sound, rime and tone is known and when to review it, the sessions played and for how long on each of the last eight days, stickers, story chapters read, words collected in the child's dictionary and pictures built | So the next session reviews the right things, the daily time limit you set can work, and the child keeps what they made. |
| What you marked when listening to your child read for a minute: how many syllables were read right, and which ones were read wrong | So you can see the reading over time, and the words read wrong come back in the next practice. |
| Settings: language, the daily play time, the weekly goal, high contrast, slow mode, and whether "Hear yourself" is on | So the app behaves the way you set it up. |
| Your answer on the anonymous statistics screen | So the app knows whether you agreed (see section 5). It starts as "no". |
| Whether the Family plan is active, and until when | So the plan keeps working without a network connection. |
| Season stories and, if you chose it, the Southern voice, downloaded from our server | So they can be read and heard offline. They are content, the same for everyone. |
| If you downloaded it, the listener's model files | So the listener works without a network connection. They are the same for everyone, and you can remove them in Settings. |
| What you marked in "Check the listener": how often you and the listener agreed. Numbers only: no sound, no words | So you can see whether the listener hears your child well enough to trust it. |
3. Device backup and iCloud
The app's storage is part of the device's own backup: iCloud Backup on Apple devices and Android Auto Backup on Android, if you have them switched on. On Apple devices with iCloud switched on, the app also keeps a copy of each child's profile and progress in your own iCloud (Apple's key-value storage), so a reinstall or a second iPad finds the children. These copies belong to your Apple or Google account, follow your settings there, and we have no access to them. The anonymous statistics waiting to be sent and their random identifier are left out of the Android backup.
4. The microphone: only if a parent turns it on
"Hear yourself" is off until a parent turns it on in the parent area, behind the parental gate. The app explains what it does first; only then does the phone ask for the microphone. The app never asks for it from a child's screen.
When it is on, the child holds the microphone button while reading a word or a sentence. The recording is kept only in the app's memory, played back once after the model voice, cut at ten seconds, and deleted when the screen closes. It is never written to a file, never sent to us or to anyone, and never used to identify a child. Turning the switch off takes the button away at once.
With "Hear yourself" on, a parent can also download The listener (experimental) in Settings. It is a speech model that runs on the phone or tablet itself, without a network connection: in each new lesson the child holds the button and reads one word aloud, and the listener praises the reading only when it is sure. That recording is cut at six seconds and kept only in the app's memory while the listener checks it, then deleted. It is never written to a file, never sent to us or to anyone, and never used to identify a child. In "Check the listener", in the parent area, you can mark each reading right or not yet; the app keeps only how often you and the listener agreed, as numbers, never the sound. You can remove the listener in Settings at any time; on a phone too slow for it, it stays off.
5. Anonymous statistics: only if a parent says yes
Behind the parental gate, the app asks whether it may share anonymous statistics so we can improve the lessons for every child: for example, which sounds most children find hard. The answer starts as "Do not send", and the app works in full whatever you choose. You can change your mind at any time in the parent area.
If you agree, the app sends the anonymous records described here to our own server, a few at a time, when it opens and after a session. If you do not agree, nothing is sent.
What a record holds: a session started or finished, its kind and how long it took; an activity answered (the lesson, the kind of activity, the sound or rime it was about, whether it was right the first time, how long it took, and the version of the lessons); the steps of a purchase (the Family plan page opened, a plan chosen, and what the store answered); the time, to the minute; and the random install identifier described in section 6.
What a record never holds: a name, an age, a photo, the child's voice, the location, contacts, the advertising identifier, any identifier of the device, or anything a child or a parent types.
Where it goes: to our own server only, and never on to anyone else. Our front door does not log these requests and removes the network address before they reach the server. The server keeps counts per lesson, activity and sound, not per child; counts per day of sessions and of the steps of a purchase; and, for each random install identifier, only the first and last day it was seen and on how many days.
Reporting a mistake: in the parent area, a parent can report a word, a story or a voice clip as wrong, choosing a reason from a list. The report sends what was reported, the reason and the app's version. It holds nothing about the child and nothing typed, and it is sent whether or not you agreed to the statistics, because it is your own act.
6. The random install identifier
After you agree to the statistics, the app makes a random identifier on the device, with the first record it keeps. It is not taken from the device, the store or anything else, and it says nothing about who your child is.
It is used only for the internal operation of the app: to count how many installations come back on later days, and to count a batch of records once even if it is sent twice. It is never used for advertising, never used to build a profile of a child, and never linked to any other identifier. Our server forgets an identifier not seen for 90 days.
If you withdraw your agreement, the identifier is deleted and the records waiting on the device are erased. If you agree again later, the app makes a new identifier, which cannot be linked to the old one.
7. Downloads from our server
Around Tết and the Mid-Autumn festival, the app looks on our server for the season's stories; if you choose the Southern voice for a child, it downloads that voice once. If you download the listener, the app fetches its model files (about 115 MB) once. These requests ask for files that are the same for everyone and send nothing about the child. As with the statistics, our front door does not log them and the server never receives the network address.
8. How long information is kept
- On the device: until you delete a child's profile in the parent area (which erases that child's progress), or delete the app.
- On our server: the counts per lesson, activity and sound and the counts per day hold nothing about any child or device, and we keep them as long as Vanko is published. The days seen for an install identifier are forgotten after 90 days without a record, the note that a batch arrived after 30 days, and content reports after one year.
9. Purchases
The Vanko Family plan is sold and billed by the store you installed from, the Apple App Store or Google Play. We never see payment details. The store tells the app on the device whether the plan is active. A purchase can only be started by an adult, in the parent area, behind the parental gate.
A purchase is governed by the store's own privacy policy and terms: Apple Privacy Policy · Google Privacy Policy.
10. Permissions the app holds
On Android, the app holds four permissions:
- Internet access and network state: Google Play's billing component uses them to sell the Family plan and to tell the app whether it is active. Internet access is also used to send the anonymous statistics a parent agreed to and a content report a parent chooses to send, to Vanko's own server, and to download season stories, the Southern voice and the listener from it.
- Google Play billing: to sell the Family plan through Google Play.
- Microphone (RECORD_AUDIO): only for "Hear yourself" and, if you download it, the listener, both off until a parent turns them on in the parent area; the phone asks for permission then, never before. The recording stays in the app's memory and is deleted when the screen closes, or as soon as the listener has checked it (section 4).
11. What the app never asks for
The app does not ask for the camera, the location, contacts, photos or files, and it sends no notifications. Links to web pages (this policy, the terms, managing a subscription) and the email to us are only in the parent area, behind the parental gate.
12. Children's privacy
Vanko is made for children, and we follow the rules that protect them, including the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the EU General Data Protection Regulation and Vietnam's law on personal data protection. That is why the app has no account, collects no name, contact detail or location, shows no ads, contains no third-party analytics or advertising code, keeps a child's progress on the device, never keeps or sends a child's voice, and shares anonymous statistics only with a parent's agreement, which is off until a parent turns it on.
The parental gate is an adult-level task in front of the parent area, purchases, links and settings. It keeps a child out of those places; it is not how we ask for consent. Consent for the statistics and the switch for the microphone are separate choices in the parent area.
13. Your rights
Your child's information is on your device, in your hands: you can see their progress in the parent area, delete a child's profile there, or delete the app to erase everything. We hold no record we can tie to a child or a device; you can still write to us at any time, and we will help.
14. Changes to this policy
If a future version of Vanko sends anything off the device that this page does not describe, we will update this page and the store listing before that version ships, and the new "Last updated" date will show it. Anything that would need a parent's new agreement will ask for it in the app first.