Privacy Policy

Last updated: 11 October 2026

Word Critters is a reading-practice app for young children, used together with a parent or carer. It is private by design: it works entirely on your device, and we don't collect, see or share any information about you or your child.

Developer: David Lau
Contact: davidlaucreative.com

The short version

We collect nothing. No personal information, no usage data, no device identifiers.
No accounts, no sign-in.
No ads, no analytics, no tracking, and no third-party services that do those things.
No internet connection is used. The app works fully offline and sends nothing anywhere.
Everything the app remembers stays on your device, and you can delete it at any time.

What the app stores on your device

To work, the app remembers a few things on the device itself. None of it is sent to us or to anyone else:

The reader's first name (optional), used for the greeting on the home screen.
The reader's school year, used to choose suitable word lists and boss battles.
Practice progress: words read, runs finished, the day streak, words that need another go, and which boss battles have been won.
The Critter collection: which critters have been found, their levels and the team.
Word lists you create, and any changes you make to lists.
Settings: sound, speech speed, appearance, the daily reminder, whether voice recognition is on, and which tips have already been shown.

We can't see any of this, and it isn't backed up to a server by the app.

Features that use your device

Hear the word: words are read aloud by your device's own text-to-speech voice.
Daily reminder (optional): if you turn it on, the app asks for permission to show notifications and schedules a reminder on the device. No notification is sent from a server.
Sounds and vibration: played on the device for taps and rewards.
Voice recognition (optional, off until a grown-up turns it on): your child reads the word out loud and the game moves on by itself. While it's on and a word is on screen, the app uses the microphone for voice recognition. The recognition happens entirely on the device, using a speech model built into the app. The sound is never saved, never sent anywhere, and is thrown away as soon as the word has been worked out. The first time it's turned on, it asks a grown-up's question and then the phone's own microphone permission. After that it turns on and off with one tap, in Settings or with the microphone button in a battle.

The app does not use the camera, location, contacts or photos, and uses the microphone only for voice recognition.

Children's privacy

Word Critters is made for children, used with an adult. Because the app collects no personal information, has no accounts, shows no ads and doesn't connect to the internet, no personal data about a child is collected, used or shared by us. This is how we meet children's privacy laws and codes such as the UK Age Appropriate Design Code, UK GDPR and the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

The only links out of the app are in Settings: sending feedback (which opens your own email app) and opening this website's About and privacy pages. Each sits behind a grown-ups-only question. There are no in-app purchases and no chat or sharing features.

Deleting your information

Everything the app stores is on your device, so you're always in control:

In the app: Settings → Reset app deletes everything and starts again.
Or uninstall the app, which removes everything it stored.

Because we hold no data, there's nothing for us to delete on our side.

Word lists

Some built-in word lists use words from the English national curriculum (Department for Education) and past phonics screening checks (Standards and Testing Agency), © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

This website

This website uses no cookies, analytics or tracking, and loads nothing from third parties. Like any website, our host (Vercel) processes standard connection details such as IP addresses to deliver the pages and keep them secure.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, we'll update the date at the top and describe material changes in the app's store listing. If the app ever started collecting information, we would update this policy and ask for a parent's permission first, where the law requires it.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Get in touch through davidlaucreative.com.