Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Read My Lips ("we", "us") operates this language-learning platform, connecting students with language teachers for online lessons. This policy explains what personal data we collect, why, and what rights you have over it.

2. What we collect

• Account details: name, email address, and a securely hashed password (or, if you sign in with Google, confirmation from Google that you own that email — we never see or store your Google password).
• Profile information you choose to add: bio, spoken/taught languages, interests, timezone, learning goals.
• Booking and lesson data: lesson requests, confirmed/cancelled/completed sessions, notes you attach to a booking, reviews and ratings you give or receive.
• Teacher verification information: if you apply to teach, you submit a qualification/ID document and a short written application, which a human admin reviews before your profile goes live. We keep the document and application on file for as long as your teacher account is active, so a decision can be reviewed or reconsidered later.
• Messages sent to other users through the platform's messaging feature.
• Payment and credit data: if you buy credits, our payment processor (Section 5) handles your card details directly — we never see or store your full card number. We keep a record of the amount paid and credits added.
• Payout details: if you're a teacher requesting a payout, you provide bank or PayPal details for us to send the transfer to. These are stored as you enter them and are visible to admins processing the payout.
• Basic technical data collected automatically by our hosting providers (see Section 5) to operate and secure the site, such as IP address and browser type in server logs.

We do not currently use analytics or advertising cookies. The only cookie we set directly is a session cookie needed to keep you signed in — see Section 6.

3. How we use it

• To create and secure your account, and let you sign in.
• To operate the booking system: showing your bookings, notifying the other party of a request, matching you with teachers based on shared interests.
• To review teacher applications before a profile goes live to students.
• To respond to support requests, investigate reports of misconduct, and enforce our Terms of Service (including suspending or banning accounts that violate them).
• To process credit purchases and teacher payouts — see Section 5 for the third parties involved.
• To create your video lesson link when a booking is confirmed.

4. Legal basis (UK/EU visitors)

We process your data on the basis of: performance of a contract (running your account and bookings), legitimate interests (keeping the platform safe, preventing abuse), and consent where we explicitly ask for it (for example, optional profile fields like interests).

5. Who we share data with

• Supabase hosts our database (currently in the Mumbai region). Your account and booking data is stored there.
• Vercel hosts and runs the application itself.
• Google, only if you choose to sign in with Google — they confirm your identity and email to us; we don't receive your Google password.
• Stripe processes credit purchases — they handle your card details directly; we receive confirmation that you paid and how much, not your card number.
• Zoom hosts the video call for a confirmed lesson — we send them the lesson time and a generic topic line (teacher and student names) to create the meeting.
• Resend sends transactional emails on our behalf (e.g. lesson confirmations) — they receive the recipient's email address and the email content.
• Other users you interact with can see the profile information and reviews you choose to make visible (name, bio, languages, ratings), and — for a confirmed booking — enough contact/scheduling detail to attend the lesson.
• We do not sell your data, and don't share it with advertisers.

6. Cookies

We currently use one strictly-necessary cookie (your sign-in session) required for the site to function — this doesn't require consent under UK/EU cookie law, since it's essential to a feature you've actively requested (staying logged in). If we add analytics or marketing cookies in future, we'll update this policy and add a consent banner before doing so.

7. How long we keep it

We keep your account data for as long as your account is active. If you'd like your account and associated data deleted, contact us (Section 9) or ask an admin — deleted accounts are removed from our database and cannot be recovered. Records of completed credit purchases and teacher payouts are kept for our own accounting purposes even after an account is deleted, as legally-required financial records.

8. Your rights

Under UK GDPR and similar laws, you can ask us to: give you a copy of your data, correct inaccurate data, delete your data, or restrict/object to certain processing. Contact us using the details below to exercise any of these.

9. Contact

For any privacy question or request, contact us via the email address associated with your account correspondence, or reach an admin through the platform.