Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 14, 2026
Effective: immediately for new accounts; November 13, 2026 for accounts created before October 14, 2026

This policy explains how Dugsiya, Inc. ("Dugsiya", "we", "us") handles personal information across everything we run: the Dugsiya app for iPhone and iPad, the teacher dashboard at teacher.dugsiya.com, our website dugsiya.com, and the text messages and emails we send to parents on behalf of teachers. We have tried to write it so a parent can read it in ten minutes. Where a law gives you specific rights, we name the law and the right in Section 10.

1. Who uses Dugsiya, and whose data this is

Dugsiya is a Quran school on a phone. It is used by three kinds of people, and we hold different information about each:

• Students. Adults practicing on their own, and children practicing at home or through a Quran school (a "dugsi"). A child's account is always created by an adult: a parent or guardian in the app, or the child's school with the parent's permission. See Section 8 on children.
• Teachers and school staff. Teachers use the web dashboard to assign ayahs, listen to recitations, grade, take attendance and message parents. Teacher accounts are approved by us before they can see any student.
• Parents and guardians. Parents may never open the app themselves, but we hold their contact details when a school or teacher adds them so that the teacher can send them updates about their own child.

2. What we collect

2.1 Information you or your school give us

• Account details. Name, email address, and a username. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive the name, email (or Apple's private relay address) and profile picture that service shares with us. For a child's account created by a parent, we create a username for the child and keep the parent's email as the recovery address; the child does not need an email of their own.
• Learning preferences. Level, preferred reciter, feedback language, and notification settings.
• Parent and guardian contact details. When a school or teacher enrols a student, they may give us the parent's name, phone number and email so the teacher can reach them. We also keep a log of the messages sent, so a teacher or parent can see what was said.
• Payment information. Subscriptions are bought through Apple. We never see your card number. We receive from Apple and our subscription service whether a subscription is active, which plan, and when it renews.
• Codes. If you redeem a school, community or promotional code, we record which code you used.
• Support messages. Anything you send us at support@dugsiya.com.

2.2 Information created while you learn

• Voice recordings. Each time you recite, the app records your voice so it can be transcribed and graded. Recordings are the heart of the product, and Section 4 is about them specifically.
• Transcripts and grades. The text our speech recognition heard, the words and letters it marked, accuracy scores, pass or retry results, and the coaching feedback that was generated for you. In AI-coach mode we also keep a text transcript of the conversation between you and the coach.
• Progress. Ayahs and surahs practised and completed, streaks, repetition counts, and the pattern of mistakes you tend to make (for example, a particular letter), which the coach uses to focus its tips.
• Teacher records. If you are in a class: assignments and due dates, the teacher's grade and notes on your recitations, attendance, and lesson notes. These are the teacher's records of their class, kept on their behalf.
• Class videos. Teachers can post videos for their class. Students see the videos for their own classes.

2.3 Information collected automatically

• Device and app information. Device model and operating system version, app version, and a push notification token if you allow notifications.
• Usage analytics. Which screens and features are used and how practice sessions go (for example, how long a grade took). These events are tied to an internal account identifier, not to your name or email, and we strip names, emails and phone numbers from them before they leave the app.
• Crash and performance reports. If the app crashes or hangs, a report with the error, the device model and OS version is sent to our crash-reporting service. The report may include a screenshot of the app screen at the moment of the crash, which could show whatever was on screen, such as the ayah you were practising. We use this only to fix bugs.
• Server logs. Our servers log each request with the time, the endpoint, the result, the network address it came from and an internal account identifier. We use these logs to keep the service running and to investigate problems.
• Location (on your device only). If you turn on prayer-time theming, the app asks for approximate location (about one kilometre) to calculate local prayer times. Location is used on your device and is never sent to us. You can turn it off in the app or in iOS Settings at any time.

2.4 Our websites

• dugsiya.com sets no cookies and loads no analytics or third-party scripts. If you use the family sign-up or password-reset forms there, the details you type go to our servers to create the account or send the reset email, and nowhere else.
• teacher.dugsiya.com uses cookies that are strictly necessary to keep a teacher signed in, and one cookie that remembers the last class a teacher opened. It has no advertising or analytics cookies.

2.5 What we deliberately do not collect

• No advertising identifiers and no cross-app or cross-site tracking.
• No contacts, photos, camera or precise location. (The app declares camera access only because a library we use requires the declaration; we never use the camera.)
• No date of birth. We do not need it to teach Quran, so we do not ask for it.

3. How we use it

We do not use your information for advertising, we do not build profiles of you for anyone else, and we do not make decisions about you with legal or similarly significant effects without a person involved. A grade in Dugsiya is a learning signal, and your teacher can always override it.

4. Voice recordings

4.1 What we record and why

When you tap record, or recite to the AI coach, the app captures your voice. We use the recording only to transcribe your recitation, grade it, generate coaching, let you and your teacher listen back, and keep your practice history. We do not use voice to identify people and we do not build voiceprints.

4.2 Who processes recordings

Processing a recitation takes several steps, and some run on services that specialise in them. Every one of them works for us under a contract or terms that limit use of your data to providing the service to us. The categories are:

• Our own servers and storage, where recordings, transcripts and grades are kept. Recordings are stored privately and are only ever served through short-lived, signed links.
• Speech-recognition hosting. Infrastructure that runs our Quran-tuned speech recognition. It receives the audio and returns text.
• A voice-conversation service, used in AI-coach mode to carry the live conversation: it hears what you say and speaks the coach's replies. We have configured it not to keep call audio, and to delete conversation data within one day.
• AI feedback providers. Models that read the transcript alongside the expected text and write the coaching feedback. For the most accurate feedback on pronunciation, the recording itself is included in that request. We have opted out of having your data used to train these providers' models wherever that option exists.
• Acoustic analysis we run ourselves to check pronunciation of individual letters.

We describe these providers by category so this policy stays accurate when we change one. The current named list of every provider that receives your voice is available on request at support@dugsiya.com, and we will send it the same day.

4.3 Consent

Before the app records you for the first time it shows a separate Voice Recording Consent screen that explains what is recorded, who processes it and for how long, and lets you decline. Declining means you can still read and listen in the app but cannot be graded. You can withdraw consent at any time in the app under Profile, and withdrawing stops any further recording.

For a child, the parent or guardian gives this consent when they create the account, or the school obtains it from the parent as part of enrolment.

4.4 How long we keep recordings

• While your account is active, so that you and your teacher can listen back and track progress.
• When you delete your account, recordings, transcripts and the coach conversation logs are deleted with it (Section 9).
• If an account goes unused, we permanently destroy its recordings no later than one year after the last interaction for Texas residents and three years for everyone else, which are the periods set by Texas and Illinois law. We may delete sooner.

4.5 Teachers and recordings

If you are enrolled in a class, your teacher (and any co-teacher of that class) can listen to your recordings to grade them. A small number of trained reviewers at Dugsiya can also listen, under confidentiality obligations, to check the AI's grading accuracy. No one else can.

5. Who we share information with

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for advertising. We share it only as described here.

5.1 Service providers who work for us

Companies that run parts of Dugsiya on our behalf. Each receives only what its job needs, is bound by contract or terms to use it only for that job, and must protect it at least as well as this policy requires.

5.2 Your teacher and school

If you are enrolled through a school or linked to a teacher, that teacher, the co-teachers of your class, and the school's administrators can see your progress, recordings, grades, attendance and parent contact details, for the purpose of teaching you. Teachers agree in our Terms to keep student information confidential and to use it only for the class. Leaving a class or unlinking a teacher ends their access to new activity.

5.3 Parents

A teacher can send a parent updates about their own child by text or email. The parent sees what the teacher writes about that child, and nothing about any other student.

5.4 Other students

Only through the leaderboard (Section 6). Students do not see each other's recordings, grades or contact details.

5.5 When the law requires it

We may disclose information to comply with a law, court order or lawful request, to protect the safety of a student or anyone else, or to protect Dugsiya's rights. We will tell you when we are allowed to.

5.6 If Dugsiya changes hands

If Dugsiya is acquired, merges, or sells the part of the business that runs the app, your information would transfer with it. The new owner would have to honour this policy or give you notice and a choice before using your information differently. We would tell you by email and in the app.

5.7 Text messages to parents

When you provide a mobile number and consent to receive text messages from Dugsiya (for example, on a paper consent form at your child's school), that phone number and your opt-in are used solely to send you messages about your child's Quran education. Message frequency varies, and message and data rates may apply. No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Information sharing with the subcontractor that delivers the messages for us is permitted for that purpose only. Reply HELP for help; reply STOP at any time to unsubscribe. Details are at dugsiya.com/sms-consent.

6. The leaderboard

Dugsiya has a leaderboard so students can see how their practice compares. Other signed-in students can see your first name, username, profile picture, score, and the surah you are currently practising. They cannot see your recordings, grades, mistakes, email or anything about your school.

You can leave the leaderboard at any time: in the app, open Profile and turn off Show on leaderboard. You keep all your progress; it just stops being shown to others. Deleted accounts are removed from the leaderboard.

7. Where your data is stored

Dugsiya is run from the United States, and the service providers in Section 5 process data in the United States. If you use Dugsiya from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, your information is transferred to the United States under the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (and the UK Addendum), which our providers also use. You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards that apply to your data.

8. Children

Most Dugsiya students are children, and we built the product with that in mind.

• Children do not sign up on their own. A person must be at least 13 to create an account for themselves. A child's account is created by a parent or guardian in the app (one parent email can hold several children), or by the child's Quran school as part of enrolment, with the parent's permission. The parent's consent to the collection described in this policy, including voice recordings, is given at that point.
• We collect the minimum. A child's account needs a first name and a username. No email, phone number, date of birth or location is collected from the child.
• No ads, no selling, no tracking, for anyone, which matters most for children.
• Parents are in control. A parent or guardian can review their child's information, correct it, download it, withdraw consent to voice recording, or delete the account, from the app or by writing to support@dugsiya.com. We will verify that you are the parent before acting. Schools can also make these requests for the students they enrolled.
• If we learn that a child under 13 created an account without a parent or school, we will delete it. Please tell us at support@dugsiya.com.

Dugsiya is not in the App Store's Kids Category, and the App Store age rating reflects that it is a learning tool for all ages used under adult supervision.

9. How long we keep information, and deletion

Deleting your account

In the app, open Profile and choose Delete Account, or email support@dugsiya.com. When you delete:

• Your recordings, transcripts, coach conversations, progress, and account details are deleted from our systems within 30 days, and your sign-in is removed from our identity provider.
• You are removed from the leaderboard immediately.
• Your teacher's own records of their class (an attendance sheet, a grade in a gradebook) may keep your first name, the way a school keeps a register, but no recordings and no contact details.
• De-identified statistics that cannot be linked back to you are kept.
• Deleting your account does not cancel an Apple subscription. Cancel it in iOS Settings, under Subscriptions.

10. Your rights and choices

10.1 Everyone

• See and download the information we hold about you, including recordings. Email support@dugsiya.com and we will send it in a common format within 30 days.
• Correct your details in the app under Profile, or ask us.
• Delete your account (Section 9).
• Voice recording: withdraw consent under Profile at any time.
• Leaderboard: turn off Show on leaderboard under Profile.
• Notifications: change them in the app or in iOS Settings.
• Text messages: reply STOP to any message.
• Location: turn it off in the app or in iOS Settings.

We will never treat you differently for exercising a privacy right. We may ask you to confirm your identity (or that you are the parent) before acting on a request. Our websites and app do not respond to browser "Do Not Track" signals because we do not track.

10.2 California

Under the CCPA/CPRA you have the rights to know, delete, correct, and to limit the use of sensitive personal information (which includes voice data). We do not "sell" or "share" personal information as those words are defined in California law, and we have not done so in the past 12 months, so there is nothing to opt out of. The categories we collect are those in Section 2, from the sources in Section 2, for the purposes in Section 3, disclosed to the categories of providers in Section 5. You may use an authorised agent to make a request.

10.3 Illinois and Texas (biometric laws)

• We collect voice recordings only with written consent, given on the in-app consent screen or, for a child, by the parent or school on the child's behalf.
• We never sell, lease, trade or otherwise profit from voice data.
• We disclose voice data only to the service providers that process it for us (Section 4.2), with that consent.
• We permanently destroy voice data when the purpose for it is complete, when you delete your account or withdraw consent, and in any event within one year of your last interaction (Texas) or three years (Illinois).
• We store and transmit it with at least the care we use for our other confidential information, including encryption in transit and private, access-controlled storage.

10.4 Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Oregon, Texas and other states with privacy laws

You have the rights to access, correct, delete and obtain a copy of your personal information, and to opt out of targeted advertising, sale and profiling. We do none of those three. Voice data is sensitive data under these laws and we process it only with consent. If we refuse a request you can appeal by replying to our decision, and we will answer within 45 days.

10.5 European Economic Area, United Kingdom and Switzerland

Dugsiya, Inc. is the controller. Our legal bases are:

You have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection, and the right to withdraw consent without affecting earlier processing. You can complain to your data protection authority; we would rather you wrote to us first at support@dugsiya.com so we can fix it. We do not use your data for automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects.

11. Security

We protect your information with measures that are appropriate for a small company holding children's voice recordings, and we review them regularly. They include:

• Encryption in transit for every connection between the app, our servers and our providers, and encryption at rest for our database volumes and backups.
• Recordings stored privately and served only through signed links that expire within an hour.
• Access controls so teachers see only their own students, and so our staff access production data only when a task requires it.
• Sign-in tokens stored in the iOS Keychain on your device.
• Automated monitoring, dependency and vulnerability scanning, and secret rotation.

No system is perfectly secure, and we do not promise that ours is. If a security incident affects your personal information, we will tell you and the relevant authorities as soon as we reasonably can and within the time the law requires, and we will say what happened, what information was involved, what we are doing about it, and what you can do. If you find a security problem, please email support@dugsiya.com and we will respond quickly.

12. Links to other sites

The app and our websites link to other sites (for example, Quran.com, Apple's subscription pages, or a video a teacher posted). We do not control those sites and this policy does not cover them.

13. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when our practices change. For changes that matter, especially anything about voice recordings, children, or who we share with, we will give at least 30 days' notice by email and in the app before the change takes effect, and we will ask for fresh consent where the law requires it. Small clarifications take effect when posted, with the date at the top updated. Earlier versions are available on request.

14. Contact us

This policy is written in English. If we translate it, the English version controls if the two differ.