Subsong
Privacy policy
Subsong teaches you British birds by sight and sound. It works fully without an account, and it doesn’t track you, show ads or sell your data.
The short version
- No account: everything stays on your phone. We receive nothing.
- With an optional account: we store your sign-in details and your learning progress so we can back it up and sync it across your devices.
- No advertising, no analytics, no tracking across apps or websites.
- You can delete your account and data at any time from inside the app.
Who we are
Subsong is made by Tedspace Ltd (“we”), registered in England and Wales (company no. 13198703), registered office 1502 Fladgate House, 4 Circus Road West, London SW11 8EX. We are the data controller. For anything about this policy or your data, email hello@subsong.app.
Using Subsong without an account
Your learning progress (which birds you’ve met, how confident you are with each, when they’re next due for review, and your session history) is stored only in a database on your device. It never leaves your phone, and deleting the app deletes it.
If you create an account
Accounts are optional. They exist so your progress is backed up and follows you to other devices. When you sign up we collect:
- Sign-in details: your email address and password (stored hashed, never readable by us), or the identity Apple or Google shares when you use their sign-in. Apple may give us your name and a private relay email address. Google gives us your name, email address and profile picture link.
- An account ID that links your progress to you.
- Learning progress: per-bird confidence and review schedule, completed sessions (when they started and finished, how many questions, how many you got right first time), and which collections you’ve started or completed.
We use this only to provide the app: signing you in, backing up your progress and syncing it between your devices. We don’t use it for advertising or profiling, and we don’t sell or share it with anyone except the service provider below.
Where your data is stored
Account data is stored with Supabase, which provides our database and sign-in service, in the European Union (Ireland, AWS eu-west-1). Supabase processes it on our behalf under a data processing agreement. If you sign in with Apple or Google, their own privacy policies cover what happens on their side.
The legal basis for processing account data is that it’s necessary to provide the service you asked for (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(b)).
Notifications
If you allow notifications, Subsong schedules review reminders on your device. They’re local notifications: no push server is involved and no device token is sent to us.
Bird photos and recordings
The bird media is bundled inside the app, so playing a song or viewing a photo sends no requests anywhere. Credits for each photographer and recordist are listed in the app under Profile → View attributions.
How long we keep data
We keep account data until you delete your account. Signing out removes your progress from that device but keeps the cloud backup so you can sign back in.
Deleting your account
In the app, go to Profile → Delete account. This permanently deletes your Subsong progress from our servers straight away. You can also email us and we’ll do it for you.
Your rights
Under UK and EU data protection law you can ask to access, correct, export or delete your data, and you can object to how it’s processed. Email hello@subsong.app and we’ll respond within one month. You can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).
Children
Subsong is suitable for all ages, but accounts are intended for people aged 13 and over. Younger learners can use the app fully without an account, in which case we receive no data at all.
Changes
If this policy changes, we’ll update this page and the date at the top. Significant changes will also be noted in the app’s release notes.