Privacy Policy
Updated 21 October 2026. Mode Atlas is developed by Jack Wright. This policy covers the Mode Atlas website and iOS app. Contact support@mode-atlas.com about privacy or your account.
What stays on your device
You can practise without an account. Your answers, learning totals, settings, practice sessions and Word Bank are saved on your device. While signed in, you can keep studying offline and sync when connected. Signing out removes your account’s local learning save and returns this device to guest mode. If your latest work cannot be confirmed as synced, you can stay signed in or choose to discard that unsynced work. Your cloud save is kept. Clearing browser storage or deleting the app can also remove local saves.
Accounts and cloud saves
If you sign in, Google Firebase Authentication provides your account identifier, email address, display name, sign-in provider and available profile photo. Mode Atlas does not receive your sign-in provider’s password. Available sign-in methods are shown in Profile.
The iOS app supports Sign in with Apple. If you choose Hide My Email, Apple provides a relay address. You can explicitly link Apple and Google to the same Mode Atlas account from Sign-in methods; linking connects those identities to the same profile and progress.
Your learning progress, practice settings, results, goals, achievements, saved words and notes are synced to Google Cloud Firestore under your account. We use this information to save and restore your progress and provide the features you choose. Guest progress on the device may be combined with your account when you sign in. A random installation identifier helps combine progress without counting the same work twice. Switching or signing out clears the previous account’s active local save before another account or guest uses the device. Remaining signed in while offline preserves your learning for later sync.
Friends is optional
Creating a Friends profile shares your chosen display name, avatar, level, title and frame with people who have your friend code. Accepted friends can also see your study streak, mastery and learning totals in Friends and rankings. Your email address, private notes and sign-in details are not shown in Friends.
You can customise an avatar and pet, or use your linked Google account photo. Account photos are loaded from Google. Friend codes, requests, connections and blocked profiles are stored to provide these features. Leave Friends to remove your Friends profile and connections while keeping your learning account.
Weekly competition
The weekly competition is a separate opt-in within Friends. Joining makes your chosen display name, avatar, level, title, frame, banner and weekly score visible to other participants globally. Other participants cannot see your email, private notes or detailed learning totals unless they are already your accepted friends. You can leave the weekly competition or block a participant at any time.
While you participate, the server checks live Kana answers and session settings to calculate weekly scores. It keeps one current session receipt per account for up to one hour, replacing it when you start another session. This receipt stores the study pool, timing, processed-answer position and kana encountered; submitted answer text is checked without being retained in that receipt. Weekly score records and award receipts expire 90 days after the week ends. Up to 52 weekly prize records and 52 weekly finish records (week, rank and score) remain on your account until replaced by newer records or the account is deleted. Your finish history is private. Database expiry runs asynchronously, so physical removal can follow the expiry time.
Reports and safety
When you report a profile, we store your account identifier, the reported profile, a snapshot of its name and avatar, your reason and any details you provide. The moderation team can review these reports and reset or restrict profiles. The person you report does not receive your identity. Reports expire after 90 days, with deletion handled by the database’s expiry process. Restrictions remain until removed or the account is deleted. Warning counts remain until Admin clears them or the account is deleted; the latest 50 warning messages are retained. Admin and Moderators can see warning counts and recent history. The warned account receives its unread messages on a later visit. Official roles are assigned by Admin and are shown as profile badges. Moderator assignments retain the display name at assignment until the role is revoked or the account is deleted. Leaving Friends does not erase restrictions or warnings.
Reminders and widgets
Study reminders are scheduled locally on your device after you grant notification permission. You can turn them off in Settings or iPhone Settings. Widgets read a local snapshot of your learning totals and last activity from the app’s shared storage; this snapshot does not include your name, email or private words. Signing out or resetting data clears the widget snapshot and reminder preferences.
Daily-goal, weekly-goal, streak and ranking alerts are separately optional. If enabled, Firebase Cloud Messaging and Apple Push Notification service deliver them using a device notification token linked to your account. The server stores your choices, alert time, quiet hours, this device’s daily reminder time, last registered time zone and previous weekly rank, and checks your cloud progress to decide whether an alert is needed. Device registrations expire after 30 days without renewal; delivery records expire after eight days. Signing out unregisters this device when connected and requests deletion of its push token. Your account choices remain for your next sign-in and can be turned off in Settings. Account deletion removes these preferences and registrations.
Service providers and diagnostics
Mode Atlas uses Google Firebase for sign-in, cloud storage and server functions. These services process technical information such as requests, network addresses and service logs to operate and protect the service. Cloud providers may process information outside your country. Their handling is described in Firebase’s privacy information.
Mode Atlas does not run advertising or track you across other companies’ apps or websites. If you choose Send feedback, the in-app form prepares an email with your message, optional reply address, app version, platform and current screen. You review and send it through your email app; learning progress and account identifiers are not attached. TestFlight feedback and crash information are handled through Apple’s beta-testing service when you use TestFlight.
A small technical error log stays in your current app or browser session. It records error categories, times and app file locations, without error messages, account details, progress or typed answers. Entries expire after 24 hours and are cleared when you change accounts. You can preview these details and choose to include them in feedback; they are not sent automatically.
Guest learning reports
Where available, Share guest learning in Settings lets you opt in to a limited development report. It includes a random installation identifier, web or iOS platform, app version, level, XP, Kana introduced and practised, answer totals, last branch visited, lesson/practice/review completion counts by learning branch, unfinished lesson exits, storage failure/recovery counts, returns on day 2 or day 7, and first/last report times. It does not include your name, email, typed answers or word-bank content. Reports are not linked to a sign-in account and stop when you sign in. They are sent no more than once a minute, are visible only to Admin, and expire 30 days after the latest report. They help identify learning and testing problems; they are not advertising or cross-app tracking.
You can stop sharing and request removal in Settings. Offline removal requests retry when you reconnect. If you clear browser/app data before reconnecting, the device can lose its removal identifier; the server report still expires automatically. A temporary removal marker prevents delayed uploads from restoring a withdrawn report and expires after 35 days. Expiry removal is asynchronous. Firebase App Check processes attestation signals to protect requests; on the web it uses Google reCAPTCHA Enterprise.
Administrator access and security records
Admin can inspect account contact and sign-in metadata, sync health, learning summaries, balances, purchases and recent verified study receipt totals to support and secure the service. These diagnostics do not expose sign-in credentials, raw saves, private word-bank entries or typed answers. Suspending an account or ending its sessions blocks further cloud access, but cannot erase copies already downloaded to an offline device. Access changes record the administrator and target account IDs, action, reason, time and completion status for 90 days. Access restrictions remain until restored or the account is deleted.
Retention and deletion
Your cloud save remains while your account exists. Reset data removes learning progress but keeps your sign-in account. Delete account & data in Settings asks for confirmation and a fresh sign-in, then removes the sign-in account, cloud learning data and Friends information. If cleanup is interrupted after the account is deleted, the server retries it. Other devices may retain local copies until you clear their data; downloaded backups and messages you have sent separately are not recalled.
Deletion access barriers are kept for seven days to prevent previously issued sign-in tokens from recreating data, then expire automatically. Short-lived request-limit records expire after one day. Service-provider logs and backups can follow the provider’s own retention schedule. Contact us if you need help accessing, correcting or deleting information, or if you cannot use the in-app deletion option.
Changes and questions
We update this page when data practices change. The date above identifies this version. For questions, a privacy request or a concern about a child’s information, email support@mode-atlas.com.