Privacy Policy
Draft prepared 20 August 2026 — not yet in force.
This is a draft, not a published policy.
It was written from what the SpeakAppi platform actually does, but it has not been reviewed by a solicitor and some company details are still to be confirmed. Do not rely on it. It will replace this notice with an effective date once it is finalised.
This policy explains what personal information SpeakAppi collects, why we collect it, who we share it with, and what you can do about it. We have tried to write it in plain language rather than the shortest legally sufficient form.
Contents
1Who we are
SpeakAppi is operated by Speak Technologies Ltd, a company registered in the United Kingdom. We are the data controller for the personal information described in this policy.
Speak Technologies Ltd is registered in England and Wales under company number 16039550, with its registered office at 70-72 Victoria Road, Ruislip, England, HA4 0AH. Our data protection contact is sam@speakappi.com.
2What we collect
What we hold depends on whether you are a student, a tutor, or a visitor who has not created an account. We collect the following:
- Account details — your name, email address, and the password you set. We never see your password in readable form.
- Profile details — your country, timezone, preferred interface language, and optionally your date of birth, gender, phone number and profile photograph.
- Tutor details — if you teach on SpeakAppi, additionally your postal address, country of residence, country for tax purposes, the languages you teach, your rates, your availability, and your public profile text.
- Identity documents — tutors upload an identity document so we can confirm who they are. It is stored privately, is never shown publicly, and is accessible only to the administrators who carry out verification.
- Class and payment records — the classes you book, attend or cancel, what was paid, our commission, and tutors' balances and withdrawals. We keep these as financial records.
- Messages and support tickets — messages between students and tutors, and anything you send us through the help desk, including attachments.
- Calendar data — if you connect Google Calendar, we store the access credentials needed to keep it in sync, and the times you are busy. We do not read the content of your calendar entries beyond their timing.
- Video classes — when you join a class, our video provider runs the call. We pass it only the name shown in the call (your first name and last initial) and a random code for you in that class. We record when each person joins and leaves the call. Calls are not recorded, and we never receive their audio or video.
- Profile visit counts — when someone opens a tutor's public profile, we add one to that tutor's total for the day. To count each visitor only once a day, we briefly use a scrambled code made from their IP address and browser type (or their account, if they are signed in). The code changes every day and is deleted within a day. We keep only the daily totals, never who visited.
3How we use it
We use your information to run the service you signed up for, and for very little else:
- To create and secure your account, and to sign you in.
- To let students find tutors, and to show tutors' public profiles to visitors.
- To take payment for classes, calculate our commission, and pay tutors what they are owed.
- To schedule classes, avoid double-booking, and keep your calendar in step if you connect one.
- To verify that tutors are who they say they are, which protects students and is also what lets us pay tutors lawfully.
- To answer your support requests and keep a record of what was agreed.
- To look into a report about a class — for example that someone didn't turn up — using the times each person joined and left the video call.
- To show tutors how many people visited their public profile.
4Our legal basis for using it
Under UK and EU data protection law we must have a lawful basis for each use. Ours are:
- Performance of a contract — almost everything above. You cannot book a class without us processing the booking.
- Legal obligation — retaining financial and tax records, and verifying identity for payment purposes.
- Legitimate interests — keeping the platform secure, preventing fraud and abuse, maintaining support records as an audit trail, and showing tutors how many people visited their public profile. We have considered your rights in reaching that assessment.
- Consent — connecting an external calendar, and any optional profile details you choose to add. You can withdraw consent at any time, though disconnecting a calendar will stop it syncing.
6Where your information goes
SpeakAppi is a global marketplace and our providers operate internationally, so your information may be processed outside the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area.
Where that happens, we rely on the transfer mechanisms permitted by UK and EU law, such as adequacy decisions and standard contractual clauses.
7How long we keep it
We keep your account information for as long as your account exists. If you delete your account, the account record and your profile are removed.
Two things deliberately survive. Financial records — purchases, commission, payouts — are retained because we are legally required to keep them. Support tickets are retained as an audit trail, but with the link to your account removed, so the ticket remains and the person behind it does not.
Classes and messages tied to a deleted account are handled the same way: the record of what happened remains where another person was also party to it, but it stops being connected to you.
Daily profile visit totals are kept for as long as the tutor's account exists. The daily code used to avoid counting a visitor twice is deleted within a day.
8Your rights
If you are in the UK or the EEA you have the following rights, and we extend them to everyone rather than only where they are legally required:
To exercise any of them, contact us using the details below. We will respond within one month. If you are unhappy with our response you can complain to your local data protection authority — in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office.
- Access — a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
- Correction — to have inaccurate information fixed. Most of it you can edit yourself in your profile.
- Deletion — to have your information erased, subject to the financial records we are required to keep.
- Restriction — to ask us to pause processing while a dispute is resolved.
- Portability — to receive your information in a machine-readable format.
- Objection — to object to processing we carry out on the basis of legitimate interests.
- Withdrawal of consent — where we relied on your consent, at any time.
9Children
SpeakAppi supports guardian-managed student accounts, so a parent or guardian can arrange classes for a child. Where an account is guardian-managed, the guardian is the account holder, gives consent on the child's behalf, and is responsible for the account.
We collect the child's first name and the details needed to schedule and attend classes. We do not invite guardian-managed accounts to become tutors, and we do not use children's information for anything beyond delivering the classes booked for them.
If you believe a child's information has been given to us without a guardian's involvement, contact us and we will delete it.
11How we protect it
Access to data is restricted at the database level, so one user's records cannot be read by another even if the application were to misbehave. Identity documents and support attachments are held in private storage and served only through short-lived links.
Our support team can access your messages and account data when needed to provide support, investigate a report, or keep SpeakAppi safe and secure.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach ever affects your rights, we will notify you and the relevant regulator as the law requires.
12We do not sell your data
SpeakAppi makes money from commission on classes. We have no advertising business and no data-brokerage business, and we do not sell or rent personal information to third parties.
This is a commitment about our business model, not only about our current practice. If it were ever to change, that would be a change to what SpeakAppi is, and we would tell you before it took effect.
13Changes to this policy
If we make a material change we will tell account holders by email and update the date at the top of this page. Continuing to use SpeakAppi after a change means you accept the updated policy.
14Contact us
For any privacy question, or to exercise your rights, email sam@speakappi.com. The data controller is Speak Technologies Ltd, a private limited company registered in England and Wales under company number 16039550, with its registered office at 70-72 Victoria Road, Ruislip, England, HA4 0AH.
If you are in the UK you may also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.