Privacy Policy
Effective 11 October 2026
Hey Dolly helps you revise questions and answers by listening, speaking and using spaced repetition. This policy explains what information the app and its servers handle, why, and the choices you have. We do not sell your information, show ads, or use advertising trackers.
Information we store
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Account: name, email address or phone number, password (stored only as a secure hash), and your Google account ID if you sign in with Google | To create your account and sign you in |
| Your study content: questions, answers, explanations, topics, and the PDFs and photos of notes you import | To show, sync and back up your cards. Imported PDFs and photos are kept only until you import or discard the cards made from them, then deleted. |
| Study activity: cards viewed, bookmarks, where you stopped, and your "Again / Got it" ratings with the resulting review schedule | To resume where you left off and schedule reviews |
| Device and sign-in: an app-generated device ID, the device model, sign-in sessions, and a push-notification token | To keep one active device per account and notify a device when it is signed out |
| App usage and crash reports: counts such as sessions started, cards revised and daily goals met, and crash reports with the app version, phone model and Android version. They never include your cards' text. | To see how many people revise regularly, which features help, and to fix crashes |
| Daily habit: your daily goal, reminder time and exam dates, kept on your phone. When you are signed in, your daily revision totals (minutes and number of cards, not which cards) and the outfits and colours you earned for Dolly are also kept on our server. | To show your streak and progress, bring them back on a new phone, remind you to revise, and count towards your batch's weekly goal |
| Leaderboards (only if you turn them on): your first name and the number of days you revised this week, shown to your batch | Friendly consistency challenges. Off unless you choose it; you can turn it off at any time. |
| Pro: plan status, remaining credits, and a record of credits used | To provide Pro features and their limits |
| Institutions: memberships, roles, classes, the email or phone number of people invited, "Seek help" notes students send their teacher about a card, and shout-outs and nudges teachers send | So schools and teachers can share material with their students and help them |
| Progress your teachers see: for material your institution gave your batch, the teachers of that batch, the head of its department (if it has one) and your institution's head see how many cards you have seen and rated, how well you remember them, and when you last revised. They can send you a reminder to revise. | So teachers can help students who are falling behind. They never see your personal cards. |
| Institution requests: when you ask for Hey Dolly for a school, college or coaching centre, its name, kind, city and size, and your name, email and (if you give it) phone number | To get in touch about it and set it up with you as its head. Kept until it is set up or declined, then for our records |
| Joining and leaving institutions: when you join or leave an institution (or are added or removed), your name, email, role, the date, how it happened and the batches you were in | So the institution's head and our administrators know who came and went. If you delete your account, only your name, role, dates and batches stay in that record; your email is removed. What you made for an institution (topics, collections, questions) stays with the institution |
Microphone, speech and sensors
- Microphone is used only while you have voice commands turned on during revision, to hear commands such as "next" or "replay". Speech is recognised on your device. If the offline recogniser is unavailable, the app may use your phone's built-in speech recognition service, which on some devices is provided by Google and may process audio on Google's servers under Google's privacy policy. Hey Dolly does not record, store or send your voice to our servers.
- Background revision: while a revision session is running, the app keeps playing and listening with the screen off, shown by a persistent notification. It stops when you leave the revision screen or close the app.
- Motion sensors are used only for gesture control, on your device. Sensor data is not stored or sent anywhere.
- Reading aloud uses your phone's text-to-speech. Pro cloud voices send the card text (not your account details) to Google Cloud Text-to-Speech; the generated audio is cached on our storage and may be reused for identical text.
AI flashcard generation
When you convert a PDF, its text (or page images, for scanned or handwritten notes) is sent to an AI model hosted by our cloud provider (Amazon Web Services) to extract or write flashcards. When you (or, for a teacher, your institution) ask for an AI explanation of a card, that card's question, answer and topic are sent to the same model. Nothing else about you is sent with it. The provider processes it only to return the result and does not use it to train its models.
Service providers
- Amazon Web Services: servers, database, file storage and AI processing
- Google Firebase Cloud Messaging: delivering sign-out notifications
- Google Firebase Crashlytics and Analytics: crash reports and usage counts
- Google Cloud Text-to-Speech: Pro cloud voices
- Email provider: sending password-reset codes
- Google Play: app distribution and payments, under Google's own policies
They process information only on our behalf. We disclose information otherwise only if the law requires it.
Security
Data travels over HTTPS. Passwords are stored as one-way hashes. Sign-in tokens are kept in your device's encrypted storage. Access to our servers is restricted.
Within an institution, topics and collections are private to the teacher who made them unless they share them with people in their department or make them public in it; the head sees public ones. Students see what their classes are given. Our own administrators can access institution content, whatever those settings, only to provide support, fix problems or keep the service safe, and never use it for anything else.
How long we keep it
We keep your information while your account exists. When you delete your account, it and everything listed above is deleted from our live systems immediately, including imported PDFs. Encrypted database backups are overwritten within 14 days. Invitations you sent on behalf of an institution remain with that institution without your name.
Your choices and rights
- Edit or delete your cards at any time in the app.
- Turn voice commands, gesture control and notifications on or off in the app or your phone's settings.
- Delete your account in the app (⋮ → Settings → Delete account) or at the account deletion page.
- Ask us for a copy of your information, or to correct it, using the contact below.
Children
Hey Dolly is not directed at children under 13. Schools or institutions that give students access are responsible for obtaining any consent their students need.
Changes
If we change this policy we will update the date above, and tell you in the app for significant changes.
Contact
Email us at heydolly.support@gmail.com.