Privacy policy

Last updated October 21, 2026

This policy covers the Langmerse desktop app for Windows (from our website or the Microsoft Store) and this website. “Langmerse”, “we” and “us” mean GHR Software Inc., 200 - 1460 CHEVRIER BLVD., WINNIPEG, MB, CANADA, R3T 1Y6, which makes them and is responsible for the personal information described here.

What we collect, and why

• Account details. Your email address and password — stored only as a salted, one-way hash — plus your plan, subscription status and sign-up date. We use them to sign you in, to email you about your account (confirming your address, resetting your password) and to provide the subscription you chose.
• Devices and sessions. Each place you sign in gets a revocable session and a record of when it was last used; the app's is labelled with your computer's name (for example “DESKTOP-1 (Windows)”). The app also reports its version, your Windows version and whether it came from the Microsoft Store, so we know which builds are still in use. While it listens, the app also sends a random, per-launch identifier, so a subscription transcribes on one computer at a time.
• Usage records. How many seconds of audio you transcribed and how many explanation requests you made, per day and per billing period, with their cost to us and the amounts our providers report for them (such as the tokens each request used). We also note the dates of account events — signing up, confirming your email, signing in and changes to your subscription — and when your account last used transcription or explanations, which decides whether a payment can be refunded (see our refund policy). We use these records to enforce your plan's allowance, to apply the refund policy, to detect abuse and, in aggregate, to understand how Langmerse is used, find problems and plan capacity and pricing; streams flagged as unusual are kept with their timing and cost so a person can review the flag.
• Saved study data (account sync). The decks and words you save — including the sentence a word came from and its translation — your review history, and daily totals of listening time, lines and words heard, including a list of the words you have encountered. This lets your study survive a reinstall and follow you to another computer. You can turn sync off in the app (Settings → Account); what you save then stays on that computer.
• Payments. Subscriptions are sold by Paddle, our online reseller and merchant of record. Paddle tells us when you pay, renew, cancel or get a refund, with each payment's amount and currency, and gives your account a customer number so it can open its billing page for you. We never see your full card number or its security code: you enter them with Paddle, under Paddle's privacy notice.
• Free trials. When you start a free trial, Paddle also tells us your card's type, last four digits and expiry date. We keep only a one-way fingerprint of them, made with a secret key, so that each card starts one free trial; and we keep a record of your agreement to the trial's terms — and, if you choose a plan when it's over, to that plan's terms: the words you agreed to, when, and the IP address it came from. Different cards can occasionally share a fingerprint: if a free trial was refused because of that, write to support@langmerse.app and a person will look at it.
• Reports you send. When you report a translation, grammar note or word meaning from the app as inappropriate or wrong, we receive that text, the line it came from, the reason and any note you add, with your account and the app's version. We use them to review what you reported and to improve Langmerse's explanations.
• Network information. Your IP address reaches our servers with every request. We use it to rate-limit sign-in and sign-up attempts, mostly for a few minutes. When sign-ins from an address fail, we keep that address and when they failed until a day passes without another failure; for 30 days after it has been suspended for too many failures; and, for a repeat offence, until the suspension is lifted. It also appears in routine server logs kept by us and our hosting provider.

Audio and transcripts

When you press Start, the app captures the sound your computer is playing — never your microphone — and streams it in real time to our speech-recognition provider, Soniox, which returns the Japanese text and its English translation. The stream goes directly from your computer to Soniox using a short-lived key from our server; it never passes through our server. We don't record, store or listen to the audio, and the app never writes it to disk.

To colour-match translations, explain grammar and define the words you save, the app sends the transcribed lines (text only) through our server to our explanation provider, Alibaba Cloud Model Studio (Qwen models), and shows you the answer. For each word you save, that means the word with the sentence it came from and the sentence's translation, so its meaning fits how it was used. Our server passes these requests through without keeping their text. The app asks your permission before it sends any of this, and you can withdraw it at any time in Settings → Account.

Your transcripts and saved chats, the offline dictionaries, caches and the app's logs stay on your computer. They never leave it unless you send them to us yourself, for example in a report.

The app comes with its Japanese dictionaries and, about once a month, downloads their newest versions: from our server, which keeps a copy of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group's (EDRDG) files, or from the EDRDG itself when ours can't be had. Like any website you visit, the EDRDG then sees your IP address; nothing else is sent to it.

Who processes data for us

• Soniox — speech recognition and translation of the audio you stream.
• Alibaba Cloud Model Studio (Qwen models) — explanations of transcribed lines.
• Our hosting and network providers — run our servers and databases, and carry the website and the app's requests to them.
• Our email provider — delivers account emails.
• Paddle — sells the subscription as our merchant of record: checkout, sales tax, billing, refunds and its billing page.
• Our professional advisers, such as accountants and lawyers, when they need it to advise us.

Each receives only what it needs for that task, under its own privacy terms. We don't sell or rent personal data, share it with advertisers, or use it to train AI models. We will disclose information if the law requires it.

These providers are based outside Canada, so your information is processed abroad: mostly in the United States, by Paddle in the United Kingdom, and for explanations in Singapore. Each protects it under its own terms and safeguards.

Why we may use it

We use your information to provide the service you signed up for (your account, transcription, explanations, sync and your subscription); for our legitimate interests in keeping Langmerse secure, preventing abuse — such as one free trial per person and per card — and improving it; to meet legal duties such as tax and accounting records and showing what you agreed to; and, where we ask for it, with your consent — for example before the app first sends audio for transcription. You can withdraw consent at any time in the app.

Cookies

This website sets a session cookie that keeps you signed in and, while you buy a plan, a cookie that remembers which plan you picked for up to a day, so it's still chosen after you confirm your email. Your browser also remembers your light or dark choice for the site. We set no analytics or advertising cookies, and neither the website nor the app contains trackers. The checkout page loads Paddle's payment form, which may use its own cookies to process your payment and prevent fraud, under Paddle's privacy notice.

How long we keep it

We keep your account, usage records, synced study data and the reports you send for as long as your account exists. Sessions end when you sign out or reset your password. When you ask us to delete your account, we delete your account details and synced data, except records we must keep for tax, accounting or fraud prevention: payments and refunds, and any usage flags, which then no longer carry your email address. We also keep a one-way fingerprint of the address with how much of the free trial it used, so that deleting an account doesn't start a second free trial. A card's fingerprint from a free trial is kept for two years after the trial started, whether or not the account still exists; the record of your agreement to a free trial's or a plan's terms is kept as long as consumer law asks us to be able to show it — at least three years after the subscription ends — and, once the account is deleted, without your email address.

Your choices and rights

• Turn account sync off in the app, and sign any device out at any time.
• Ask for a copy of your data, a correction, or deletion of your synced data or your whole account, by writing to support@langmerse.app. We'll act within 30 days.
• Depending on where you live, you may have further rights — such as to object to or restrict processing, or to complain to your data-protection authority.

Security

Connections to our servers are encrypted (HTTPS), passwords are stored as salted one-way hashes, and sessions can be revoked. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect what you entrust to us.

Children

Langmerse isn't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we'll delete it.

Changes to this policy

We'll post changes on this page and update the date at the top. For significant changes, we'll also let account holders know by email or in the app.

Contact

Questions or requests about your privacy: support@langmerse.app. Langmerse is made by GHR Software Inc., 200 - 1460 CHEVRIER BLVD., WINNIPEG, MB, CANADA, R3T 1Y6. See also our terms of service.