Privacy Policy

• We collect the details you give us to match you: the languages you speak and learn, when you're free, and a little about your interests.
• Your video calls run directly between you and your partner. We don't record or store them.
• We don't sell your data, and we never show ads inside PalVivo.
• You can see, correct, download or delete your data at any time.

Vekteur Inc., based at 1200, boul. Saint-Martin Ouest, bureau 130, Laval (Québec) H7S 2E4, Canada, is the "data controller" for the personal information described here, meaning we decide how and why it's used. We've appointed a Privacy Officer (the person responsible for the protection of personal information) whom you can reach at info@palvivo.com.

We collect:

• Account details: such as your name or nickname and your email address.
• Your languages: the one(s) you speak and the one(s) you're learning, and your rough level.
• Your availability: when you're free for sessions.
• Matching details: a little about your interests, used to suggest partners and conversation prompts.
• Feedback: the private rating you give a partner after a call.
• Technical and usage data: basic information your device and browser send (like a language cookie and general logs) so the service works and stays secure.
• The messages you send us: if you write through the contact page or by email, we keep your name, your email address and your message for as long as it takes to deal with your request. We do not add you to any mailing list.

The video and audio of your sessions travel directly between you and your partner whenever a direct connection can be made. When it can't, which happens for roughly one call in six, the stream is relayed by a third-party technical provider. That provider cannot read it: the stream is encrypted between the two browsers, and the relay only forwards sealed packets. PalVivo does not record, listen to, or store your calls. Please respect the same rule yourself: don't record a partner without their clear permission.

We use your information to:

• Pair you with a suitable partner and suggest conversation prompts.
• Set up and run your account and your sessions.
• Keep PalVivo safe: preventing abuse, fraud and misuse.
• Reply to you when you contact us.
• Understand how PalVivo is used, so we can improve it.

Some of this happens automatically: we suggest partners and conversation prompts using a system that looks at your languages, availability and interests. It only makes suggestions: you always decide for yourself whether to continue with a partner, and you can email us to ask how a suggestion was made.

Under the privacy laws that apply to us (including Québec's Law 25, and the GDPR for visitors in Europe), we rely on: performing our agreement with you (to provide the service you signed up for); our legitimate interests (to keep PalVivo safe and to improve it); your consent where we ask for it; and complying with the law where we must.

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

• With your partner: they see the profile details needed for the exchange (such as your name/nickname, languages and shared interests). They don't see your email address or your private ratings.
• With service providers who help us run PalVivo (for example hosting and email), under contracts that keep your data protected and let them use it only on our instructions.
• If the law requires it, or to protect the safety and rights of members and the public.

We measure two things: this public website (palvivo.com), and the app you sign in to (app.palvivo.com). The website uses two tools, Google Analytics and PostHog, plus two advertising ones if you switch Marketing on: Google Ads and the Meta pixel. The app uses PostHog, set up more tightly, and Google Ads for one thing only: telling an ad campaign that a click turned into an account. It does that only if you switched Marketing on here — the app reads the same choice, and reports nothing without it.

On this website, we sort cookies into three groups, and you decide about the optional ones:

• Strictly necessary: a small cookie called NEXT_LOCALE that remembers the language you chose (English, French or Spanish), so you land on the right one next time. It doesn't track you around the web, and it's always on because the site needs it.
• Analytics (optional): two tools, Google Analytics 4 and PostHog. Between them they tell us which pages people read, where they arrived from, what they click, how far down a page they get, and they record a replay of the visit. Off unless you turn it on.
• Marketing (optional): two tools, Google Ads and the Meta pixel, the one behind Facebook and Instagram ads. They tell us which visits came from one of our ads and which of those led to a sign-up, so we know which campaigns are worth running. They don't read your name or your email address. Off unless you turn it on.

On this website, the optional cookies stay switched off until you agree to them. Nothing beyond the strictly necessary runs without your consent, and refusing is as easy as accepting. You can change or withdraw your choice at any time from the "Cookie preferences" link in the footer. We record your choice (and its date) so we can honour it, and we ask again periodically.

PostHog is the tool behind the replay, and it deserves a paragraph of its own. It is a product-analytics service that shows us where people get stuck: which steps they finish and which they abandon. It runs in both places, this website and the app, with different settings in each.

On this website, PostHog starts only once you've switched Analytics on. From that moment it records the pages you open, what you click, how far you scroll, and a replay of your visit, which is a reconstruction of what appeared on your screen. The contact form is left out of that recording completely: your name, your email address and your message never reach it. PostHog knows you by a random identifier, never by your name or your email address. Switch Analytics back off and the recording stops there and then, and the cookies and browser storage PostHog created are deleted.

In the app, it is set more tightly still. It only runs once you have an account, and it knows you by your account's random identifier, not by your name or your email address. It doesn't sweep up whatever you click on; we count a short list of actions we chose deliberately. When it records a replay of a screen, every piece of text on it is masked into blocks: enough to see where someone hesitated, never enough to read what you or your partner wrote. Web addresses are stripped of anything identifying before they're sent.

PostHog stores all of this on servers in the United States (see the next section).

Your data is stored and processed by us and our providers. Some of them are outside Québec: the measurement of both this website and the app runs on PostHog's servers in the United States, and Google Analytics, Google Ads and Meta are US services too. Before any of your data is communicated or stored outside Québec, we assess the protection it will receive and put appropriate safeguards in place (such as contractual clauses), so it stays protected to a comparable standard.

We keep your information for as long as you have an account. You can close it yourself at any time, from your profile in the app: it takes effect immediately, with no waiting period and no way to sign back in. Your name, photo, bio, country, languages, topics and availability are erased or made anonymous in the same operation. Past sessions and the ratings your partners wrote about them stay, attached to a record that no longer names you: deleting your half of a shared conversation would delete theirs too. Anything else is deleted or made anonymous when it is no longer needed, unless the law asks us to keep it longer.

You can ask us to:

• See the personal data we hold about you, and get a copy.
• Correct anything that's wrong or out of date.
• Delete your data (“the right to be forgotten”).
• Limit or object to certain uses, and withdraw consent you've given.
• Receive your data in a portable format.

You do not have to ask us for the third one: you can delete your account yourself, at any time, from your profile in the app. For any of the others, email info@palvivo.com. If you're not satisfied with how we handle your request, you also have the right to complain to the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec (Québec's privacy regulator), or to your local data-protection authority.

PalVivo isn't for children under 16. We don't knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has given us their information, tell us and we'll remove it.

We use sensible technical and organisational measures to protect your data, like encryption in transit and limiting who can access it. No service can promise perfect security, but we work hard to keep your information safe and to act quickly if something goes wrong. If a confidentiality incident (a data breach) ever creates a risk of serious harm to you, we'll notify the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec and let you know, as the law requires.

We may update this policy as PalVivo evolves. If we make an important change, we'll let you know before it takes effect. The date at the top always shows the current version.

For anything about your privacy, email info@palvivo.com, or write to Vekteur Inc., 1200, boul. Saint-Martin Ouest, bureau 130, Laval (Québec) H7S 2E4, Canada.

One page on this site records your voice and then a short video of you, and gives you back the same video speaking another language. Your voice and your face are biometric data, so here is exactly what happens to them.

• Nothing is recorded until you tick a box saying so. That box is never ticked for you, and the button stays inert until you tick it.
• You record twice: about forty-five seconds of reading, then ten seconds of video. Both stay in your browser while you record. Nothing is sent until you press the button at the end.
• The reading is used to make a copy of the sound of your voice, which exists only long enough to say your sentence in the other language, and is deleted immediately afterwards.
• Three services outside Canada and the European Union see your recordings while the video is being made: ElevenLabs in the United States, which listens and makes the voice; fal.ai in the United States, which matches your lips; and Google, whose Gemini writes the translation. We use their paid services, whose terms say they do not train on what we send them.
• Both recordings are destroyed the moment your finished video exists. Not overnight, and not at the end of the week: at that moment.
• The finished video stays available for 48 hours so you can come back for it, then it is deleted. Download it while it is there.
• We keep a record that you agreed, with the date and the version of the wording you saw, because a consent we cannot show is not a consent. It holds no name and no recording.
• If you asked us to email you when the video was ready, that address is used for that one message and nothing else. It is not added to any list, and it goes when the video goes.

We never publish your video, never show it to anyone else, and never use it to advertise anything. It is yours, and the only person who can share it is you.

The free speaking test on this site records your voice for about two minutes. This is exactly what happens to that recording.

• It stays in your browser while you record. Nothing is sent anywhere until you press the button at the end.
• It is then stored, privately, on Vercel, which hosts this site, and it waits there for you to open your PalVivo account. Nobody can reach it by address, and nothing links it to your name until you claim it.
• When you open your account, the recording is sent to Google's Gemini AI, which listens and reports back what it heard. We use Google's paid service. Under its terms, Google does not use what we send to improve its own products, and no reviewer at Google listens to it. Google keeps a trace of it for a short time, solely to detect abuse and to meet its legal obligations.
• The recording is deleted the moment your result exists. If you never open an account, nothing is ever analysed and the recording is erased after seven days at the latest.
• We do keep the result: your estimated level, the five sub-scores, how fast you spoke, and one short sentence you said, quoted back to you. It is stored on your PalVivo account, and deleting that account deletes it.

You can ask us to delete all of it at any time by writing to info@palvivo.com. Deleting your PalVivo account removes the result with it.