In the wake of the Path address book debacle and the recent FTC report on Mobile Apps for Kids, more app users, particularly parents of kids that use apps, are concerned about what information apps may be collecting and just how it is being used. As parents we completely understand those concerns and we’re crafting an official privacy policy.
In the meantime I wanted to talk about our approach to privacy in Super Speller. First, we absolutely do not collect or transmit any personally identifiable information in our app. Our app does gather a minimal amount of anonymous information that can be used to improve the user experience. However, none of that information can be used to identify or locate the individual using our software in any way. In other words if Super Speller crashes, it lets us know so we can fix the problem. That’s it. We don’t like it when the software we use has a problem and we especially don’t like it when our software has a problem. This helps us identify and fix problems as quickly as possible.
As a parent there are a couple of other items you may want to be aware of in our app. First, we include a button that allows you to send us a support email. In our experience it can be very frustrating when you have a concern and can’t figure out where to direct it. It hasn’t happened yet, but if it is obvious that an email was sent by a child it will be deleted. We also provide a link to our web site from within in our app so you can read things like this fine blog post or learn more about us and our apps.
Lastly, our app allows you to share tests with other Super Speller users via email. Super Speller does not include any personally identifiable information in these tests, though it doesn’t prevent you from adding such information in the title of the test, or your recorded audio. You should take care to insure that you know and trust the recipient of any shared test. Test results often include the name of the student taking a test, but neither the student name nor test results are included when sharing a test with others.
That’s it. There is no advertising, no social network integration, no login information, or in app purchasing in our app. We believe the things we have included are reasonable and offer very little risk of exposing you or your child’s personal information.
We do our best to make our app a safe environment, but you may also want to look into restricting access to particular apps or features by enabling parental controls on your iPad or iPhone. This article explaining how to enable parental controls is available from Apple.
If you have any further questions or feedback for us regarding privacy we would love to hear from you.