SoriNest respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what information SoriNest may process, why it is used, and the choices available to you.
1. Information stored on your device
SoriNest may store learning information locally on your device, including lesson progress, vocabulary review history, XP, streak information, daily goals, preferences, profile selections, completed activities and other learning-state information.
2. SoriNest Friends
If you choose to use SoriNest Friends, SoriNest uses Firebase services to create a technical account identifier and provide Friends functionality.
Friends data may include:
- your SoriNest display name;
- a SoriNest friend code;
- technical user identifier;
- learning level and Korean level;
- XP and streak information;
- selected milestone or certificate information;
- friend requests and friend connections;
- block information; and
- safety reports submitted through SoriNest Friends.
Friends is optional. Sori Lounge adds an adults-only practice lobby, accepted private conversations and study groups of up to four people. Lounge access is free at launch after adult screening, email connection and acceptance of the community rules. Your nickname and selected lesson can appear in the lobby; conversation messages are available to current authorised participants.
Optional username discovery
Adults can choose a unique username and make it searchable by its exact spelling. The public lookup contains the username, display name, account identifier and update time. A private reservation connects the username to its owner to prevent duplicate claims. Accepted friends and people with a pending friend request can see each other's username unless blocked. Email, birthday, private photos and learning records are not placed in this directory. You can hide from search while keeping your username and friendships. Changing your username releases the old name for someone else to choose. Deleting Friends data removes the username and its reservation. Older app versions may still offer optional nickname discovery; choosing a username removes your old nickname listing. Friend codes remain optional.
2a. Sori Lounge accounts, age screening and conversations
Connecting an email uses Firebase Authentication. Email links provide password-free access; existing accounts with a password can also sign in using their email and password. Credentials are sent securely to Firebase for authentication and are not included in SoriNest diagnostic reports or shared with other learners. We process your email, account identifier, display name, connection requests, group membership and chosen lesson to provide the service. The birthday screen calculates an age-eligibility result on your device. Firebase stores that result, the time it was submitted and an eligibility date; it does not store your full birthday from that screen. Other learners cannot see the age record. This is self-declaration, not independent identity or age verification.
Text messages, timestamps, sender identifiers and shared lesson references are stored in Firebase. Private voice replies are stored in private Cloudflare R2 storage and made available to authorised recipients. A downloaded or recorded reply may remain in temporary app storage while you use it. Blocking, access restrictions and safety-report records support moderation.
Shared Lobby chat
The Lobby is a text-only conversation for eligible adult Lounge members. Your display name and messages are visible to other eligible members, including when you choose to appear offline. Your private device photo is not published automatically; you can explicitly share a separate Lounge picture as described below. You can share a lesson invitation in that conversation or send an invitation privately to a friend. Accepting a lesson request opens a separate practice room; it does not start a call or microphone recording.
You can request a private conversation with a learner from the Lobby. They must accept before private messages can be exchanged. Either-way blocking prevents access to each other’s public message text and new private contact. A message you have already seen may remain on your screen briefly until the next access check. The Lobby refreshes on new messages and rechecks access at least every 30 seconds while foregrounded. Report controls send the selected message to the existing moderator review queue. Only attached evidence is accessible to the restricted report assistant.
2b. Lounge online status
On your first visit, SoriNest explains online visibility and lets you continue online or appear offline. After continuing online, eligible adults can automatically see your display name and that you are online while the Lounge is in the foreground. Green means online. After 15 minutes without touch or keyboard activity, the indicator changes to orange for away; interacting again returns it to online. Activity is evaluated on your device; the service receives only your current status, not a record of your taps or typing. Tap your own profile picture and choose “Appear offline” to hide your online status, shown to you as a grey badge with an ×. The app remembers your choice on that device for your account; an existing offline choice is preserved. Older versions use “Show me here” and “Hide me” for the same visibility setting. The app sends a short heartbeat to Cloudflare containing your authenticated account identifier and a temporary connection reference; your name is checked against your Lounge account. It does not publish your private device photo, email, birthday, lesson history or precise last-seen time.
You can choose “Appear offline” or leave the Lounge to stop sharing your online status. This does not hide invitations you have posted or prevent you from using messages or joining sessions. If your connection drops or the app closes unexpectedly, the online entry expires within 90 seconds of the last heartbeat and is automatically removed. Blocked accounts cannot see each other’s live presence; current age and Lounge access are checked before showing a person. No long-term attendance history is created. Ordinary service security logs may still be retained as described elsewhere in this policy.
Optional Lounge picture
From your Lounge profile menu, choose “Lounge picture” to explicitly share your profile photo or another selected image. SoriNest creates a small JPEG thumbnail without the original photo metadata and stores it with your account identifier and update time in Firebase. Only eligible adult Lounge members can retrieve it; blocked accounts cannot retrieve each other’s pictures. It appears beside your messages, including earlier messages, and in the People list while you show online or away. Choosing “Appear offline” hides your online status, not your shared picture.
A Lounge picture remains shared until you remove or replace it. Choose “Remove shared picture” in the same menu to delete it and return to the Sori portrait. Deleting Friends data also removes this shared thumbnail, and it is included in a cloud-account deletion request. Received thumbnails may be cached by the app; removing a picture prevents future authorised retrieval but cannot recall a copy already seen or saved by another person. Sharing at a study table is a separate, room-only choice with the shorter retention described below.
2c. Optional study-table photos
Your device profile photo stays on your device unless you explicitly choose to share it with a study table or as a Lounge picture. You can also choose another photo for that table. SoriNest creates a small JPEG thumbnail, removes its original photo metadata, and stores the thumbnail, your account identifier and a temporary revision in private Cloudflare storage. Only authorised current members of that study group can fetch it. It is not a public profile photo or a lobby image.
Shared table photos expire after 24 hours and are automatically deleted. You can remove your shared photo earlier using the table’s Photo control. Leaving a group or losing access prevents further access to its photos; a copy already seen or saved by another participant cannot be recalled. The app keeps received thumbnails in memory while the table is open. Live speaking highlights are calculated on the receiving device from call audio levels; this does not create an audio recording or send speech to a recognition service.
3. Microphone and speech processing
SoriNest may request microphone access when you choose speaking or pronunciation activities.
For pronunciation assessment, recorded speech may be securely transmitted through SoriNest's Cloudflare infrastructure to Microsoft Azure Speech services for pronunciation analysis. The returned assessment may include pronunciation, accuracy, fluency, completeness and word-level feedback where supported.
SoriNest does not intentionally store pronunciation recordings as part of your Friends profile.
Some speech-recognition activities may use speech-recognition services provided by your Android device or its configured speech-recognition provider.
3a. Live study calls
Calls are optional and start muted after you choose to join. Once unmuted, your voice is transmitted through Cloudflare Realtime to other authorised people in that room, including while you use another app. Use the in-app controls or Android call notification to mute or leave. Calls last up to one hour and have at most four participants. SoriNest does not record live calls and does not use your camera.
Cloudflare processes network addresses and connection information to route call audio, including relay connections when needed. Our service stores temporary room, participant, connection and mute status to operate calls, plus usage counters to limit abuse and costs. Transport is encrypted; we do not claim end-to-end encryption against the service provider. Other participants could record outside SoriNest despite our rules.
4. Text-to-speech and learning audio
SoriNest contains local learning audio. Where local audio is unavailable, text required to generate learning speech may be transmitted through SoriNest infrastructure to an audio-generation service.
4a. Audio reliability reports
If bundled learning audio cannot play, the released app automatically sends a small technical report to SoriNest through Cloudflare. It includes the app version, affected learning-audio asset and download-pack status, failure reason, fallback outcome and a random event reference. It does not include your microphone recording, chat text, email, name or full learning history. Firebase App Check protects the request. Reports help the owner identify and repair audio faults; they may be stored and included in a developer email digest. This diagnostic reporting cannot currently be switched off separately in the app. It is not used for advertising.
5. Firebase and Cloudflare
SoriNest uses Firebase for functionality including SoriNest Friends and related backend services. SoriNest also uses Cloudflare infrastructure for selected server-side services.
5a. Optional coins and lesson books
Where available, Google Play processes coin purchases. SoriNest does not receive or store your card number or bank details. Our service checks the Google Play purchase token, product, payment status and an account identifier before crediting coins. It retains purchase references, coin balances, refund adjustments and shop unlocks in private Cloudflare storage, linked to your Firebase account, so duplicate purchases are not credited twice and your purchases can be recovered. A raw purchase token is removed from our receipt record after successful consumption; a hash and the order reference remain for recovery and fraud prevention. Firebase App Check helps protect these requests.
Earned coins and learning records remain on your device. For an online shop unlock, the app sends the selected item, a unique operation reference and the amount of earned coins used. Full optional PDFs are held in private storage and delivered after an ownership check. A downloaded copy is saved only to the location you choose. Purchase and unlock records remain while needed for your account, recovery, refunds and fraud prevention. You can request deletion through the account-deletion contact below; we will explain any records that must be retained for legal obligations or fraud prevention.
For free launch access, a restricted service checks your age-screening result, accepted rules and existing membership. It records and periodically refreshes an access expiry so service pauses and moderator restrictions remain enforceable; no coin balance is read or debited for free entry. Existing purchase records are retained for recovery and refund handling. Removing Friends data does not delete a connected email account or purchased coin balance.
6. Why information is processed
Information is processed to:
- provide learning and progress functionality;
- provide SoriNest Friends;
- provide pronunciation and speech features;
- protect users and enforce Friends safety features;
- maintain application security and reliability; and
- respond to support, privacy and safety requests.
7. Reports and blocking
SoriNest Friends provides reporting and blocking controls. Safety reports may contain the reporting user's technical identifier, the reported user's identifier and display name, report reason, report status and timestamp. Reports are intended for SoriNest safety and moderation purposes. Lounge reports can include the reported message or voice reply, lesson/room reference, reason and involved account identifiers. The owner moderator makes final decisions. A restricted assistant connection can read reports and their attached evidence, not unrestricted private conversations or learner records. Where the owner uses the ChatGPT assistant to review a report, that evidence is processed by OpenAI for the review. The assistant cannot suspend accounts or make final moderation decisions. Live call audio is not available as report evidence because SoriNest does not record it.
8. Data sharing
SoriNest may transmit limited information to service providers that are required to operate app functionality, such as Firebase, Cloudflare, Microsoft Azure Speech and device speech-recognition services.
SoriNest does not sell personal information to advertisers.
9. Data retention and deletion
Learning information stored only on your device can generally be removed by clearing SoriNest application data or uninstalling the application.
Lobby text and its timestamp-only index follow the same retention period as private and group messages. Text messages become eligible for automatic cleanup after expiry and at least 30 days after creation; cleanup runs periodically rather than at an exact second. Private voice files have a separate storage expiry. Group membership and conversation metadata, account and age records, connection information and reports are not removed simply because a message expires. They support access, account continuity and safety until deletion or a necessary retention period ends. Call media is not retained as a recording by SoriNest. Provider security and operational logs may have their own retention periods.
The in-app Delete SoriNest Friends data control removes only Friends data. To request deletion of your full cloud account and associated Lounge and coin-shop data (including purchased coins and unlocks), use Request account and data deletion or email sorinest.korean@hotmail.com. The owner handles these requests after confirming account ownership. We aim to complete requests within 30 days and explain any justified delay or limited records that must be retained for safety, fraud prevention or legal obligations. Local lesson progress and certificates are not automatically erased by a cloud-account deletion request.
See the SoriNest Data Deletion page for additional instructions.
10. Age
The learning app is intended for users aged 13 and older. Sori Lounge messaging, study groups and live calls are restricted to adults aged 18 and older. Younger learners can continue lessons and solo practice. Do not provide a false birthday or attempt to bypass access restrictions.
10a. International service providers
Firebase/Google, Cloudflare, Microsoft Azure, device speech providers and OpenAI may process relevant information outside Australia. We use access restrictions and encrypted transport; provider processing follows the applicable service arrangements. Only information needed for the selected feature or safety review should be sent.
11. Security
SoriNest uses reasonable technical measures intended to protect application services and user information. No online system can guarantee absolute security.
12. Changes to this policy
This Privacy Policy may be updated as SoriNest develops. The updated date at the top of this page will identify the current version.
13. Contact
Privacy, support and data requests can be sent to: