Privacy Policy

Welcome to Shadowing — a Chrome extension and companion site for practicing English pronunciation on YouTube (referred to as “the Service”). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your information when you use the Service. By using Shadowing, you agree to the terms outlined in this Privacy Policy.

The Service collects:

• Account data: your email address and login timestamps for authentication.
• Practice progress: phrases attempted, scores (pitch, accuracy, phoneme-level), and aggregate stats used to show your dashboard.
• Temporary audio segments: on the Premium plan, short audio clips of your repetition are uploaded to our servers for phoneme-level assessment, then discarded after processing.
• Subtitle / transcript text: public YouTube subtitles for the videos you practice on, used to split phrases.
• User preferences: theme, target level, and native language — stored locally in chrome.storage.local and on your account.

We do not collect: personal identifying information beyond your email, browsing history, video content from your screen, or unrelated activity.

Data is used to:

• Authenticate your account and keep you signed in.
• Score your pronunciation, pitch, and intonation, and show results in the extension and dashboard.
• Run premium phoneme-level assessment on uploaded audio clips, then immediately discard the clips.
• Maintain practice history and streaks on your dashboard.
• Process payments and subscriptions via Stripe.

No data is shared with third parties unrelated to the core functionality.

Account data and practice progress are stored in our database on a private server located in the EU. User preferences are stored locally in chrome.storage.local. Audio clips uploaded for premium phoneme assessment are processed and immediately deleted — they are not retained.

We do not sell, trade, or transfer your data to third parties. Data is sent only to the services we use to run Shadowing:

• Stripe — for subscription billing (email + billing details you provide at checkout).
• Our own server — for authentication, practice history, and premium audio assessment.

Security measures include:

• Encrypted communication via HTTPS on all endpoints.
• Secure local storage using Chrome's built-in storage APIs.
• Short-lived JWT access tokens and HTTP-only refresh cookies for sessions.
• Audio clips deleted immediately after phoneme assessment completes.

You may at any time:

• Delete your account and all associated data from Settings.
• Cancel your subscription from the extension's user menu — access continues through the end of the paid period.
• Clear local extension storage manually, or uninstall the extension to remove all locally stored data.
• Export your practice history (Pro plan).

Outside of Stripe (billing) and our own API server, no third-party analytics, advertising, or tracking services are integrated into the Service.

Shadowing is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, contact us and we will delete it.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated via the extension, the dashboard, or the Chrome Web Store listing page. The “Effective date” above will be updated accordingly.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your data, reach us through the support page.