Privacy Policy

Who we are and what this covers

Virtuous English Academy ("VEA", "we", "us") runs the free English-learning website at virtuousenglishacademy.com. This policy covers that website and every page on it.

It explains what data we hold, why we hold it, who else can see it, and what you can make us do about it. It is written to meet the UK GDPR, the EU GDPR, the CCPA/CPRA, and the disclosure requirements of the Google AdSense programme.

If anything here is unclear, ask us at virtuousenglishacademy@outlook.com — we would rather explain it than have you guess.

What we collect

Your data sits in one of two layers, and which one depends entirely on whether you have chosen to create an account.

If you use VEA without an account

Your progress, quiz states, saved preferences and study timers are written to your own browser's localStorage. That data stays on your device. We cannot read it, and it is never transmitted to us.

You can erase all of it at any moment by clearing site data in your browser. You do not need to ask us, and nothing is kept on our side to delete.

If you create a free account

Signing in lets your progress follow you between devices. To do that we store, against your account:

• Your email address and display name, handled by Google Firebase Authentication.
• Course progress, streak count, XP, badges and weekly study seconds.
• Flashcards and vocabulary you choose to save, and notes you write in the dashboard.
• Placement-test results and any certificate you generate.
• Whether you ticked the optional marketing-email box when you signed up.

We never ask for payment details, because nothing on the site is paid for. We do not ask for your address, phone number, date of birth or any government identifier.

If you write to us

Messages sent through our contact page reach us by email and include the name, email address and message you typed. We keep them only as long as we need to answer you.

Advertising — how ads on this site work

We use Google AdSense (publisher ID ca-pub-6733098045611992) to display ads on our lesson, grammar, vocabulary, story and blog pages. This page and our other policy pages carry no ads.

The disclosures Google requires us to make

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or to other websites.
• Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to our site and/or other sites on the internet.
• You can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings.
• You can opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info/choices, or — in Europe — at youronlinechoices.eu.

What we do not do

We do not build our own advertising profiles, we do not run cross-site behavioural tracking of our own, and we do not sell or share your personal information with data brokers. The advertising data described above is processed by Google under its own privacy policy, not passed to us — we receive aggregate earnings reports, never the identity of who saw or clicked an ad.

If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland

Before any personalised advertising or analytics cookie is set, you are shown a consent message and asked to choose. If you decline, ads are still shown but are non-personalised — served on the basis of the page you are reading rather than anything about you. You can change your answer at any time from the "Privacy settings" link in the site footer.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 (measurement ID G-56N53QZVQH) to understand which lessons people actually finish, which pages are broken, and where learners give up. It is the only analytics tool on the site.

We record page views plus a small number of named events: completing a placement test, saving a flashcard, and creating an account. These are counted, not tied to a name — we use them to decide what to build next, and for nothing else.

IP addresses are anonymised by Google Analytics 4 by default. We have not enabled Google Signals, advertising features or cross-device tracking in our Analytics property.

Third parties we actually use

This is the complete list. Every one of these is a service the site genuinely loads — if a name is not here, we are not sending your data to it.

Why we are allowed to hold this (legal basis)

• Contract — account data exists because you asked us to save your progress and sync it between devices.
• Consent — advertising and analytics cookies in the EEA/UK, and marketing email anywhere. You can withdraw consent at any time without losing access to any lesson.
• Legitimate interests — keeping the service secure, preventing abuse, and fixing what is broken.

How long we keep things

• Local, guest-mode data — until you clear your browser. We never see it.
• Account data — for as long as the account exists, then deleted on request.
• Contact messages — deleted once the conversation is finished.
• Analytics — retained on Google's default schedule for a GA4 property.

Security

Account data lives in Google Firestore behind server-enforced security rules: each account can read and write only its own records, and those rules are enforced by Google's servers rather than by anything running in your browser. The whole site is served over HTTPS with HSTS.

No system is perfect. If you believe you have found a security problem, please write to us before disclosing it publicly and we will fix it as fast as we can.

Children

VEA is a general-audience education site and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13.

Teachers using our material with a class should have pupils work in guest mode, which stores nothing off the device and requires no account at all. Every lesson, story, quiz and grammar page works fully without signing in.

If you are a parent or guardian and believe a child has created an account here, write to us at virtuousenglishacademy@outlook.com and we will delete it.

International transfers

Our hosting, authentication and database are provided by Google and may process data on servers outside your country, including in the United States. Google relies on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and the EU–US Data Privacy Framework for those transfers.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• Show you a copy of the account data we hold about you.
• Correct anything that is wrong.
• Delete your account and everything attached to it.
• Stop sending you email, at any time, with one click.
• Restrict or object to a particular use of your data.

Under the GDPR you also have the right to data portability and the right to complain to your national data-protection authority. Under the CCPA/CPRA you have the right to know, delete, correct, and to opt out of "sale" or "sharing" — we do not sell or share personal information as those laws define it, and you will never be treated differently for exercising any of these rights.

To make a request, email virtuousenglishacademy@outlook.com from the address on the account. We answer within 30 days.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your data in a way that matters, we will update the date at the top of this page and, for anything significant, say so on the site itself. Continuing to use VEA after a change means you accept the updated policy.