Privacy Policy

Version 1.4 · Effective July 19, 2026 · Last updated July 19, 2026

1. Who we are

Kaiserauer Solutions LLC, a Michigan limited liability company ("we", "us"), located at Available upon written request to the contact email below., operates this website and application (the "Service"). This policy explains what personal information we collect, why, and the choices and rights you have.

2. Information we collect

Account data: name, email address, and password (stored as a salted hash, never in plain text) — or, if you sign in with Google/Apple, the profile information those providers share with us.

Billing data: if you subscribe to a paid plan, our payment processor Stripe collects and stores your payment method; we receive your subscription status and Stripe customer ID, not your full card number.

Content you provide: anything you submit through the Service, including input to any AI feature (see AI Disclosure).

Learner data: when a parent or guardian creates a learner profile, we store a nickname, broad age band, phonics-level progress, session duration, word counts, and normalized word-level miscues. We do not store microphone audio or a full speech transcript.

Optional browser speech recognition: if you choose the read-aloud control, your browser or operating system's speech provider may process microphone audio, including on that provider's servers. Sound It Out receives only the recognition result in the open page, does not receive or store the audio, does not send it to OpenAI, and does not persist the full transcript.

Technical data: IP address, browser/device information, session tokens, and log data, collected automatically to operate and secure the Service.

Cookies: see our Cookie Policy.

3. How we use information

• To provide, maintain, and secure the Service (e.g. authentication, fraud prevention).
• To process payments and manage subscriptions.
• To send account, security, and (where applicable) billing emails.
• To operate any AI feature you use, including sending your input to the AI provider(s) named in the AI Disclosure.
• To comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms and Acceptable Use Policy.

We do not currently use analytics, advertising, or marketing trackers that rely on non-essential cookies. If that changes, we will update this policy and our Cookie Policy before those tools are enabled.

4. Legal basis (EU/UK visitors)

If you're in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, the GDPR/UK GDPR requires a lawful basis for each use above: performance of a contract (providing the Service you signed up for), legitimate interests (security, fraud prevention, product improvement), consent (where we ask for it, e.g. optional cookies), and legal obligation (tax, compliance). You can withdraw consent-based processing at any time without affecting past processing.

5. Who we share information with

We don't sell your personal information. We share it only with:

• Service providers who process data on our behalf (e.g. hosting/infrastructure, Stripe for billing, our email provider for transactional email).
• AI providers, when you use an AI feature — currently: OpenAI (see AI Disclosure for what's sent and why).
• Law enforcement or other parties when required by law, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of us or others.
• A successor entity in the event of a merger, acquisition, or asset sale, with notice to you.

6. Data retention

We retain account, learner-profile, and aggregate level-progress data while the relevant account or learner profile remains active. Detailed reading sessions, their linked word-level miscues, and phonemic-awareness attempts are automatically deleted after 365 days. Expired AI passage-cache rows are deleted daily, and pseudonymous AI quota ledgers are deleted after 35 days.

A parent can download or permanently delete an individual learner profile in the Parent view. Withdrawing parental consent uses the same immediate deletion flow and removes that profile and its linked learning data. A parent can also request account deletion in product; the deletion is confirmed by email and cascades to every learner profile. Payment processors may retain billing records where tax or other law requires it.

7. International transfers

We're based in the United States, and information we collect is processed there and by service providers in other countries. Where GDPR applies, we rely on appropriate safeguards for transfers out of the EEA/UK (e.g. Standard Contractual Clauses) with our providers.

8. Your rights

California residents (CCPA/CPRA): you have the right to know what personal information we collect and how we use/disclose it, to request deletion, to correct inaccurate information, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information — we don't sell or share personal information as those terms are defined by the CCPA/CPRA. You won't be discriminated against for exercising these rights.

Other U.S. states (e.g. Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and others with comprehensive privacy laws) provide similar rights to access, correct, delete, and obtain a copy of your data, and to opt out of targeted advertising, sale, or certain profiling — to the extent those laws apply to us.

EEA/UK/Switzerland residents (GDPR/UK GDPR): you have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to processing, and receive a portable copy of your data, and to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

Use the download and deletion controls in the Parent view, or email ajkaiserauer@gmail.com to exercise any of these rights. We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling a request.

Where applicable law requires additional notices, representation, or consent controls for EU/UK visitors, we will provide and maintain those controls in product and in our Cookie Policy.

9. Children's privacy

Sound It Out is designed for parent-supervised early reading practice. Accounts and learner profiles must be created and managed by a parent or legal guardian. Before creating a learner profile, the adult must affirm consent to the limited learner data described above. A child should not create an account or submit contact information. Parents can download a portable copy, withdraw consent and delete one reader, or delete the whole account from the Parent view; they can also contact ajkaiserauer@gmail.com. The public homepage walkthrough is an example only: it does not create a learner profile, call the passage-generation API, or save reading progress. Real reading practice requires a parent-managed account and learner profile.

10. Security

We use technical and organizational measures appropriate to the sensitivity of the data we hold (encryption in transit, hashed passwords, access controls) — see docs/security.md in this project for the current baseline. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will update the "Version" and "Last updated" date above, and where required by law we'll provide additional notice.

12. Contact

Questions or rights requests: ajkaiserauer@gmail.com — Available upon written request to the contact email below..