Last Updated: September 3, 2026 (Greenwich Mean Time)
This Privacy Policy explains how Emanuele Dirignani ("Owner", "we", "us"), operating the Italicore application ("Italicore", "the Service"), collects, uses, stores, and protects personal information belonging to users ("you"). This Policy is intended to comply with the Privacy Act 2020 (New Zealand) and its Information Privacy Principles (IPPs), as the Owner is based in Auckland, New Zealand, and the Service's servers are hosted internationally.
This Policy should be read alongside our Terms and Conditions. If you do not agree with this Policy, please do not use the Service.
We collect the following categories of personal information:
| Category | Examples | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Account information | Username, email address, hashed password | Provided directly by you at registration |
| Learning progress data | Unit/lesson/topic progress, quiz scores, test results, lesson logs | Generated automatically as you use the Service |
| Journal entries | Titles, written entries, AI-generated corrections | Provided directly by you |
| Voice recordings | Short audio clips submitted for pronunciation practice | Provided directly by you (processed transiently for scoring) |
| AI interaction data | Messages exchanged with Lira, generated exercises, journal feedback | Generated as you use AI features |
| Payment and subscription data | Subscription tier, purchase history, invoice metadata | Provided by you and processed via Stripe (we do not store full card details) |
| Technical and security data | IP address, login timestamps, login success/failure | Collected automatically |
| Referral data | Referral tags, referring restaurant partner codes, and friend-invite connections (who invited whom, invite date, referral reward status) | Collected automatically via cookies or referral links |
| Feedback and support data | Bug reports, reviews, support correspondence | Provided directly by you |
| Anti-abuse data | reCAPTCHA v3 risk scores and related signals | Collected automatically via Google reCAPTCHA |
We use personal information for the following purposes, consistent with IPP 1 (only collecting information for a lawful, connected purpose) and IPP 10 (only using it for that purpose or a directly related one):
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for third-party advertising targeting beyond the ad content described in our Terms and Conditions.
Certain features — the Lira chat tutor, AI-generated exercises and pronunciation drills, AI reading generation, and AI journal feedback — are powered by Google Gemini. When you use these features, the content you submit (messages, journal entries, exercise answers) is sent to Google's API for processing. By using these features, you acknowledge that this data may be used by Google in accordance with its own terms to provide and improve the underlying AI service.
Voice recordings submitted for pronunciation practice are processed using speech recognition and are not retained beyond the time needed to generate your score.
AI-assisted software development and maintenance. Separately from the user-facing AI features above, Italicore may use general-purpose AI coding and software-engineering assistants — such as Anthropic's Claude — to help write, review, debug, and maintain the application's code and infrastructure. In the course of this work, these tools may be given access to portions of the codebase and, where necessary to diagnose or fix an issue, to database records, logs, or exported data samples, which can include personal information (for example, journal entries, AI chat logs, or account records) if that information is directly relevant to the task at hand. This is analogous to the access already described in Section 9 for authorized personnel performing system administration, safety moderation, or customer support. Data shared with such AI development tools is handled in accordance with the relevant provider's own privacy policy and terms (for Anthropic, see anthropic.com/legal/privacy), and we take reasonable steps to limit what is shared to what is genuinely needed for the development or troubleshooting task.
| Third Party | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Stripe | Payment processing, subscription billing, invoicing |
| Google (Gemini API) | AI tutoring, AI-generated exercises, journal feedback, reading generation |
| Anthropic (Claude) | AI-assisted software development, debugging, and maintenance of the Service (not used to power any in-app student-facing feature) |
| Google reCAPTCHA | Bot and abuse prevention on public-facing forms |
| Google Cloud Platform (GCP) | Application hosting and database infrastructure |
| Email delivery provider | Sending transactional and account-related emails |
We do not permit these providers to use your personal information for their own independent marketing purposes.
Your information is processed and stored on servers provided by Google Cloud Platform, which may be located outside New Zealand. Google, Stripe, Anthropic, and other providers listed above may also process data outside New Zealand. By using the Service, you consent to this transfer. We take reasonable steps to ensure that any recipient of your information outside New Zealand is required to protect it in a way that, overall, provides comparable safeguards to those in the Privacy Act 2020, consistent with IPP 12.
We retain personal information only for as long as necessary for the purposes described in this Policy, consistent with IPP 9:
| Data Type | Retention Period |
|---|---|
| Account & profile data | For as long as your account is active, or until deletion is requested |
| Login logs (including IP addresses) | 24 months, after which entries are automatically anonymized (identifying details such as IP address and account association are removed); the anonymized records are not deleted and may be retained for security and analytical purposes |
| AI interaction logs (Lira chats, AI exercise logs) | 24 months, after which entries are automatically anonymized (identifying details such as your email/account association are removed); the anonymized records are not deleted and may be retained for quality assurance and service improvement purposes |
| Journal entries, lesson logs, test logs | Retained until you delete the entry or your account |
| Purchase and billing logs | Retained as required for tax, accounting, and dispute-resolution purposes |
| Voice recordings (pronunciation practice) | Not retained beyond the time required to generate a score |
| Verification / password reset codes | Deleted automatically after expiration (typically within 10 minutes) |
| Friend-referral connections (invites) | Retained while the referral reward is pending or for historical record; if either account is deleted, that account's email is anonymized within the record rather than deleted, consistent with our account deletion process |
| Deleted account records | Personal identifiers are replaced with anonymized placeholders; associated historical records are retained in de-identified form |
| Data shared with AI development tools (e.g. Claude) | Not persisted by Italicore beyond the specific debugging or development task; any retention by the tool provider itself is governed by that provider's own policy |
Under the Privacy Act 2020, you have the right to:
To exercise these rights, please contact us at [email protected]. We will respond within the timeframes required by the Privacy Act 2020 (generally within 20 working days).
We take reasonable steps to protect personal information against loss, unauthorized access, use, modification, or disclosure, consistent with IPP 5. Passwords are stored using industry-standard hashing. Payment details are handled directly by Stripe and are never stored on our servers. However, no system can guarantee absolute security, and you use the Service at your own risk in this respect.
Please note that journal entries are stored in our database and are not end-to-end encrypted. They may be accessed by authorized personnel — or, where necessary to diagnose a technical issue, by AI-assisted development tools as described in Section 4 — for system administration, safety moderation, customer support, or platform improvement. Please avoid including sensitive personal, medical, or financial information in journal entries.
In the event of a privacy breach that has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm, we will notify the New Zealand Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) and affected individuals as soon as practicable, in accordance with our internal breach response procedure and the requirements of the Privacy Act 2020.
We use cookies for the following purposes:
We do not use cookies for third-party behavioral advertising.
Italicore is intended for general audiences learning Italian. If you are under the age of 16, please only use the Service with the involvement and consent of a parent or guardian. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child without appropriate consent, we will take steps to delete that information.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. We will update the "Last Updated" date above when changes are made. Continued use of the Service after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised Policy.
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your privacy rights, please contact:
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may lodge a complaint with the New Zealand Office of the Privacy Commissioner at www.privacy.org.nz.