Privacy Policy

Metis (“Metis,” “we,” or “us”) is developed and operated by Iurie Nunu, an individual developer. This policy explains what information Metis collects when you use the app, why, and who it's shared with. It applies to the Metis iOS and Android apps and to this website.

Information we collect

When you create an account and use Metis, we collect:

• Account information: your email address. If you sign in with Google, also your name and profile photo from your Google account. If you sign in with Apple, your name (if you choose to share it) and the email address Apple provides, which may be a private relay address.
• Profile information: a display name and a unique handle (created automatically from your name, and changeable later), your profile photo if one came from your Google account, your native and learning languages, and your time zone, so reviews and reminders follow your own day.
• Content you create: the words and phrases you look up, your saved cards and collections, and your review history, progress, and streak.
• Social activity: your friend requests and friendships, words, challenges, and collections you share with friends or that friends share with you, the users you block, and any reports you submit.
• Device information: your device platform (iOS or Android) and the region set in your device's settings (not your precise location, and not derived from your IP address), a push notification token so we can send you notifications, and basic diagnostic/crash data if the app encounters an error.
• Usage information: events such as a card being created, a review being completed, or a screen being viewed, used to understand how the app is used.

We do not collect your payment card details directly. Subscription payments are handled entirely by the Apple App Store or Google Play, and we never see your card information.

How Metis uses AI

When you search for a word, the text you type is sent to a third-party AI language model (OpenAI's or Google's Gemini API, depending on configuration) to generate a translation, meaning, and example sentence. Only the searched text and the two language codes involved are sent, not your name, email, or any other account information.

To keep the app fast and reduce cost, the AI-generated result for a given word can be cached and reused across different users who search the same word in the same language pair. The fact that a specific person searched a specific word is never shared this way. Only the resulting definition/translation content may already exist from someone else's identical search.

What other Metis users can see

Metis has optional social features. Other users can find you by your handle or display name, and see your display name, handle, and profile photo in search results, friend requests, and friend lists (including the friend list of someone you're friends with). Your email address is never shown to other users.

Once you accept a friend request, that friend can also see your learning and learned word counts and the words you've learned. Words, challenges, and collections you share are visible to the friends you share them with, and members of a shared collection can see the words in it.

You can remove a friend at any time. You can also block another user, which removes the friendship and anything shared between you, and stops either of you from finding or contacting the other in Metis. If you report a user, your report (the reason, any details you write, and which user it concerns) is stored and reviewed by the developer so we can act on abuse. The reported user is not told who reported them.

Who we share information with

Metis relies on the following third-party services to operate:

• Supabase: hosts our database, authentication, and backend functions. All of your account and content data is stored here.
• Google: provides Sign in with Google, and (depending on configuration) the Gemini API used to generate word content. Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging delivers push notifications to Android devices.
• Apple: provides Sign in with Apple, and the Apple Push Notification service delivers push notifications to iOS devices.
• OpenAI: may be used (depending on configuration) to generate word content, as described above.
• Expo: our push notification service. It receives your device's push token and the text of each notification, and passes them to Apple or Google for delivery.
• Resend: sends account emails, such as sign-up confirmation and password reset messages, to your email address.
• RevenueCat: manages subscriptions on our behalf. It receives an anonymous account identifier and your purchase/subscription status, not your email or name.
• PostHog: our analytics provider (EU-hosted). It receives your account identifier tied to usage events (e.g. that a card was created or a review was completed) and general interaction data (e.g. which screens you view), so we can understand how the app is used. It does not receive your email address, the words you've looked up, or your review content.
• Sentry: our crash-reporting provider. It receives technical error reports, linked to your account identifier (not your email) so we can tell how many people a bug affects.
• Discord: the developer receives private notifications through Discord when a new account is created (including its email address) and when a user report is submitted (including its contents), so reports can be acted on quickly.
• Apple App Store / Google Play: process all in-app purchases directly; we never see your payment details.

We do not sell your personal information to anyone, for any purpose.

This website

This website uses PostHog to count page views and clicks on the App Store badge, along with the page address (including any campaign tags in the link you followed), your browser's referrer, general browser and device type, and an approximate location PostHog derives from your IP address. It runs without cookies or local storage, does not record sessions, and does not identify you, so each visit is anonymous and isn't linked to your Metis account or to previous visits.

Legal bases (EEA/UK users)

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, we rely on the following legal bases to process your information:

• Contract: to provide the service you sign up for, including your account, cards, reviews, AI-generated word content, social features, and subscriptions.
• Legitimate interests: for product analytics (in the app and on this website), crash reporting, and safety and abuse prevention, such as handling blocks and reports and limiting misuse of AI generation. You can object to this processing by contacting us.
• Consent: for push notifications, which you allow or decline through your device's own permission prompt and can turn off at any time in your device settings or in the app.

Data retention and deletion

We keep your account and content for as long as your account is active. You can delete your account and all associated data at any time from Profile → Delete account inside the app. This is immediate and permanent. If you'd rather request deletion by email instead, contact [email protected] and we will delete your account and data within 30 days of a verified request. See Delete your Metis account for full details.

When an account is deleted, its profile, cards, reviews, collections, friendships, shared words and challenges, blocks, and push tokens are deleted with it. Reports you submitted, or that were made about you, are kept so we can deal with abuse, but are no longer linked to the deleted account. Analytics and crash data already sent to PostHog and Sentry are kept by those providers under their own retention periods. Purchase records are held by Apple or Google, not by us.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export, or delete your personal information, and to object to or restrict certain uses of it. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at [email protected]. If you are in the EEA or UK, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

Children's privacy

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

Changes to this policy

If we make material changes to this policy, we'll update the effective date above and, where appropriate, notify you in the app.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data? Email [email protected].