Privacy policy

Who we are

Scéal is run by Scéal Intelligence Solutions Limited, a company registered in Ireland (company number 827326). Our registered office is Annagleve School, Annagleve, Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan, Ireland.

We are the “controller” of the personal data described here. For any question about your data, or to use any of your rights, email hello@sceal.studio.

What we collect and why

Data protection law says we need a lawful basis for each use of your data. For most of what Scéal does, the basis is contract: we need the data to give you the app you signed up for.

Speaking recordings

Speaking practice lets you record yourself saying a line and compare it with a native speaker. Here is exactly what happens to those recordings:

• The recording is saved in a temporary folder on your phone so you can play it back.
• It is deleted when you move on, when you tap Arís to try again, and in any case the next time the app starts.
• It is never uploaded. It doesn’t reach our servers or anyone else’s, and we never hear it.
• Speaking practice doesn’t score you and doesn’t earn cúilíní. The app only counts, on your phone, how many lines you tried today.

Recording needs the microphone. Your phone asks your permission the first time, and you can turn it off at any time in your phone’s settings. Speaking practice is optional; the rest of Scéal works without it.

What stays on your phone

Some things are kept only on your phone and never sent to us:

• Taisce, the words, facts and seanfhocail you save.
• App preferences (such as haptics) and where you left off in a lesson, game or story.

Your phone’s own backup may include them: iCloud or computer backups on iPhone, and your Google account backup on Android if you have backup turned on. On Android we leave your sign-in out of that backup, so a restored phone asks you to sign in again.

Two more things are kept on your phone for a while:

Answers waiting to be sent. When you answer in a lesson, Scéal saves the answer on your phone first and sends it to us in the background, so a slow or dropped connection never holds you up. Until it is sent, it waits on your phone together with the cúilín it earned and the record that you finished the lesson. Scéal tries again the next time you answer, finish a lesson or open the app, and removes each one from your phone once it is sent. This is the same learning activity described under What we collect; it is simply held on your phone for a short while first. If you sign out, anything still waiting stays on the phone and is sent the next time you sign in to the same account.

Lesson audio. So that lessons play without waiting, Scéal downloads a lesson’s audio when you open it and keeps a copy on your phone: up to about 100 MB on iPhone and 60 MB on Android, with the oldest clips removed first. These are our recordings of native speakers, the same for every learner; they are not your own speaking recordings, which are covered above.

Rewards and Scéal for Business

Businesses can offer rewards that you unlock with cúilíní. When you redeem one, we record which offer and business it was for, how many cúilíní you spent, the offer’s typical value (to add up what you’ve saved), and when it was issued and used. The code in your QR is random, works for a limited time only, and is stored by us in scrambled form. Each reward also has a short code (for example SCL-4K7Q2M) that staff can type in instead of scanning; we store it with the reward as it is.

What the business sees. When staff scan or type your code, they see “Scéal learner” (not your name), your code, and the offer’s title and terms. A business can also see a list of its own redemptions (the code once it has been used, the offer, its value, the times and the status), but not your account ID, email, cúilíní or any other detail about you. Scéal never gives a business your name or email.

When you contact a business yourself. Some offers are used by booking online or by email instead of in person. For these, after you redeem, the app shows you the business’s booking link or email address (or both), with your code ready to use. Scéal doesn’t send anything for you and doesn’t give the business your details. But when you send the email or make the booking, the business sees what you send or enter: your email address if you write by email, and whatever the booking page asks for, which may include your name and email. The app tells you this next to the booking link and the email button. What the business then does with those details is covered by its own privacy policy, not this one.

If you run a business on Scéal, we hold your business name; your address and city, or that you’re online and available anywhere; your Irish story; your offer and how learners use it (in person, your booking link, your email address for redemptions); your sign-in email and password; and when you ticked the box agreeing to the Scéal for Business terms. Your sign-in email is also the address we contact you at. We also keep a record of each application: when you sent it, our decision and the reason, and when we emailed you. Learners see your name, address, city, Irish story and offer. Your booking link and redemption email address are shown only to a learner who has spent cúilíní on your offer. Learners never see your sign-in email.

Details we use only to check your business. When you apply, you can also give us a contact person (name and role), a phone number, your website, and your Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and LinkedIn. These are optional. We use them to check that the business is real before we approve it, and we greet your contact person by name in our emails to you. Only you and the people at Scéal who approve businesses can see them. They are never shown to learners.

We email you ourselves. During our pilot, the emails about your application are written and sent by a person at Scéal, from our own email. We don’t use an email marketing service for them.

If a business leaves Scéal. A business can delete its account in the app, with Delete account at the bottom of the business screens, or by emailing hello@sceal.studio from the business’s sign-in address. When it’s deleted, its sign-in, sign-in email, address, Irish story, booking link, redemption email and the details used to check it are deleted straight away, its offer ends, and codes that learners had paid for and not yet used are refunded. Copies in our daily backups are gone within 7 days. We keep a closed record of the business (its name, its city, its past offers and our decisions on its applications) so that learners’ history and the totals they have saved stay correct. If no learner ever got a code for its offer, its name isn’t kept either.

App analytics

The Scéal apps use PostHog, hosted in the EU, to count how the app is used. This is anonymous: events are linked to a random ID created by the app, not to your account, name or email. We record events such as:

• choices in conversations and how you rated yourself;
• answers to the notification prompt, the reminder time you chose, and taps on reminders;
• the seanfhocal being opened or shared, and (on iPhone) voicemails played, with the dialect;
• the type of item saved to Taisce (word, fact or seanfhocal);
• the level and city you choose when you start;
• the app being installed, opened and closed, and which screens are opened.

We don’t record your screen or your sessions, and we never send the reasons you gave for learning. When you delete your account, the app starts a new random ID.

Switching it off. Usage data is on by default. To stop it, go to Settings → Privacy in the app and turn off Share anonymous usage data. Nothing more is recorded or sent while it’s off, and you can turn it back on at any time.

Phone permissions

• Microphone: only for speaking practice, asked the first time you use it.
• Notifications: for your daily reminder. Reminders are scheduled on your phone; we don’t use a push-notification service.
• Camera: only on a business account, to scan a learner’s QR code, asked the first time staff scan. Learner accounts are never asked.
• Scéal never asks for your location, contacts or photos, and doesn’t track you across other apps.

Maps: the journey map shows fixed places in Ireland. To draw it, your phone loads map data from Apple Maps (iPhone) or Google Maps (Android), which receive standard technical details such as your IP address. Your own location is never used.

Who we share data with

We don’t sell your data, and we don’t use it for advertising. We share it only with:

• Supabase: hosts our database and sign-in, in the EU (Ireland). It holds your account and everything listed under “What we collect”, and keeps a daily backup of our database for 7 days.
• PostHog: anonymous app analytics, hosted in the EU (Frankfurt).
• Vercel: hosts this website.
• Google (Google Workspace): our email. It handles messages you send to hello@sceal.studio, password-reset emails are sent through it from that address, and our emails to businesses about their applications are sent through it.
• Apple and Google, who run the app stores and the maps described above.
• Businesses whose rewards you redeem, as described above.

These providers act on our instructions under data processing agreements. We may also share data if the law requires it.

Transfers outside the EU

Our database and app analytics are hosted in the EU. Vercel (this website) and Google (our email) are US companies, so data they handle may be processed in the United States. Where that happens, it is protected by the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses.

How long we keep it

• Your account and learning data (including cúilíní and rewards): until you delete your account. Deleting it removes them from our database straight away. Our database is backed up once a day and each backup is kept for 7 days, so a copy may remain in a backup for up to 7 more days. After that it’s gone.
• Speaking recordings: minutes at most, on your phone only.
• Answers waiting to be sent, on your phone: until they are sent. Deleting your account clears them.
• Lesson audio, on your phone: until the app replaces it to stay under its size limit, your phone clears it to free space, or you delete your account or the app.
• If you run a business: your business account details until it is deleted. After that we keep the closed record described under If a business leaves Scéal.
• Anonymous usage data: one year.
• Website logs: about an hour.
• Emails to us: up to 2 years after the conversation ends.

Your rights

Under data protection law (the GDPR) you have the right to:

• access the personal data we hold about you and get a copy;
• correct it if it’s wrong (you can change most of it yourself in Settings);
• delete it (see below);
• object to uses based on legitimate interests (for usage data, just switch it off in Settings);
• restrict how we use it while a concern is being looked at;
• portability: get the data you gave us in a common, machine-readable format;
• withdraw consent where we rely on it, such as microphone or notification permission, at any time in your phone’s settings.

To use any of these rights, email hello@sceal.studio from the address on your account. We’ll reply within one month.

You can also complain to the Data Protection Commission, Ireland’s data protection authority, at dataprotection.ie. We’d appreciate the chance to sort it out with you first.

Deleting your account

In the app, go to Settings → Delete account and confirm. This permanently deletes your account and everything our database holds about it: your profile, progress, streaks, cúilíní and reward history. It goes from our database straight away; copies in our daily backups are gone within 7 days (see How long we keep it). It also clears Taisce, your preferences, any answers still waiting to be sent and stored lesson audio from that phone.

If you can’t open the app, email hello@sceal.studio from the address on your account and we’ll delete it for you. Deleting the app from your phone does not delete your account.

A business account is deleted the same way, with Delete account at the bottom of the business screens (a business account has no Settings), or by emailing us from the business’s sign-in address. See If a business leaves Scéal for what we keep.

Children

You must be 16 or over to create a Scéal account. Under-16s may use Scéal through a parent’s or guardian’s account, under their supervision. New sign-ups confirm this with a tick box when creating an account. We don’t ask for a date of birth.

If you think someone under 16 has created their own account, email us and we’ll delete it.

Website and cookies

This website doesn’t use cookies and has no analytics or advertising code. Its fonts and map data are served from our own site. Vercel, which hosts it, processes your IP address and browser details to deliver the pages and keep them secure.

Signing in to the business area. The only thing this website stores in your browser is a sign-in, and only if you sign in to the business area at sceal.studio/business (businesses, and the people at Scéal who approve them). Your browser then keeps that sign-in in its local storage: the sign-in tokens, your account’s ID, your sign-in email and when it was confirmed. It keeps you signed in between visits, and stays until you sign out, delete the account, or clear this site’s data in your browser. It isn’t a cookie, isn’t used for tracking, and isn’t shared with anyone. Signing in uses the same Scéal sign-in as the app, run by Supabase (see Who we share data with).

Scanning a learner’s code in the browser. If staff scan a learner’s QR code in the business area, the browser asks permission to use the camera first. The picture is read inside the browser only to find the code. It isn’t recorded or sent to us; only the code is sent, to check it.

The Scéal apps don’t use advertising identifiers and don’t track you across other apps or websites.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we use your data, we’ll update this page and the “Last updated” date at the top. If a change is significant, we’ll also tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.