Privacy & children’s data

How we protect your child’s data.

This is the Children’s-Code-required notice: what data Spellify collects, how special educational needs data is handled, how consent works, and how long data is kept.

Draft — awaiting professional review. The wording below describes how Spellify actually works today, but it has not yet been reviewed by a data protection professional. It is excluded from search indexing until that review is complete.

What we collect

About your child, we hold only what the learning needs: a first name or nickname (a nickname is fine — we never ask for a real name), their year group so we serve the right curriculum, their avatar and buddy choice, their learning progress, and their support settings. If you type or scan a spelling list, we hold that list. About you, the account holder, we hold your email address and, if you subscribe, a billing reference — card details go straight to Stripe and never reach us. We do not collect a login for your child, an email or contact details for your child, their location, or any advertising identifiers. There is no advertising and no third-party tracking anywhere in Spellify.

Assisted learning is a setting, not a diagnosis

Spellify is built for dyslexic learners, but it never asks for or stores a diagnosis. Extra support — the dyslexia-friendly font, audio, hints, extra time — is a switch you or your child can turn on and off at any moment, exactly like turning up the volume. Because we hold a preference and not a health record, none of this is special category data under Article 9 of the UK GDPR, and we have deliberately designed it that way. If your child stops using extra support, the setting simply changes; nothing is kept about why it was ever on.

Consent and lawful basis

You, as the adult account holder, set up every child profile and give permission on your child’s behalf — children never create their own accounts. Our lawful basis is the contract we have with you to provide the service, together with our legitimate interest in making the learning work, weighed against your child’s interests, which come first in the design. Anything optional asks separately and is never pre-ticked. You can withdraw permission at any time by deleting a child profile or the whole account from Settings; there is no form to fill in and no need to contact us.

How long we keep it

We keep your account and your children’s profiles for as long as the account is open. Deleting a child profile removes that child’s data; deleting your account removes every child profile with it, and cancels any subscription at the same time. If an account goes unused for 24 months we delete it and everything in it. A photographed spelling list is deleted as soon as we have read the words from it — the image itself is never kept. Stripe holds billing records for as long as tax and accounting law requires, which is outside our control.

Who else touches the data

Four companies, and no others. Supabase stores the database and handles sign-in, hosted in the EU with default-deny access rules so one family’s data can never be read by another. Vercel hosts and serves the app. Stripe processes payments and sees only your billing details, never anything about your child. If you sign in with Google or Apple, they confirm your email address to us and receive nothing about your child in return. We do not sell data, share it with advertisers, or pass it to anyone else.

Questions about your child’s data?

Email support@spellify.co.uk and a person will answer. You can ask us what we hold about you or your child, ask for a copy of it, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. We’ll respond within one month.

You don’t have to wait for us to delete anything. Deleting a child’s profile, or your whole account, is available in Settings inside Spellify and takes effect immediately — that removes every child profile with it and cancels any subscription at the same time.

If you think we’ve got something wrong and we haven’t put it right, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk. We’d rather you told us first, but it’s your right either way. Back to Spellify →