Last updated: 19 August 2026.

Before you publish this

This page is a genuine, accurate description of what the current codebase does — not a legally reviewed policy. Replace the bracketed placeholders below with your real business details, and have it checked against the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (and GDPR if you expect EU visitors) before treating it as your live policy. We're not a law firm, and this isn't legal advice.

Who this policy covers

This policy applies to [Lingo Uncharted / your legal entity name] ("we," "us") and this website. It covers everyone who visits the public site, and separately, anyone with admin access to the backend.

What we collect from general visitors

As the site is currently built, visiting the public pages, reading the blog, browsing the dictionary, or studying flashcards does not require an account and does not store any personal information in our database. Specifically:

  • No visitor accounts. There's no sign-up, login, or user profile on the public side of the site.
  • You choose whether Google Analytics cookies are set. A cookie banner appears on your first visit — until you click "Accept," Google Analytics runs in a consent-denied mode that doesn't set cookies or collect identifying information. See the Third-party services section below for details, and "Cookie Preferences" in the footer to change your choice at any time. Beyond that, the public pages don't set any cookies of their own. Dictionary search and flashcard study happen entirely in your browser (JavaScript), and nothing you type into the dictionary search box is sent to our server or stored.
  • No contact or newsletter forms yet. If we add one later (a contact form, email signup, or comments), this policy will be updated to describe exactly what's collected and why before that feature goes live.

What we collect from admin users

The admin panel (used only by site editors, not the public) does use a session cookie to keep you logged in after entering a username and password. This cookie is deleted when you log out or close your browser session, and is not used for tracking or advertising — only for authentication.

Server logs

Like virtually every website, our web server automatically logs basic technical information for security and troubleshooting — things like IP address, browser type, and pages requested. This is standard server behaviour, not something the site's code adds deliberately, and these logs are not cross-referenced with any personal profile because we don't have visitor profiles to cross-reference them with.

Third-party services

The site loads typefaces (Fraunces, Inter, and IBM Plex Mono) from Google Fonts. Loading a font from Google's servers means your browser makes a request directly to Google, which can see the requesting IP address, as it would for any external resource. We don't control what Google does with that request — see Google's Privacy Policy for details. If you'd prefer not to make that request, using a browser extension that blocks third-party font loading will still leave the site fully usable with system fallback fonts.

We use Google Analytics (GA4) to understand overall traffic — which pages get read, roughly which country visitors come from, and which device types are common. It only runs if you accept the cookie banner shown on your first visit. Until then, Google Analytics operates in a "consent denied" mode that doesn't set cookies or collect identifying data (Google may still receive basic, non-cookie-based pings used only in aggregate, anonymous form — this is part of how Google Analytics is designed to work even without consent). If you accept, Google Analytics collects information such as your IP address (Google's own systems handle this — we don't receive or store raw IP addresses ourselves), general location, device and browser type, and which pages you visit and for how long. We don't use this to identify individual visitors personally, and we don't combine it with anything else we hold. You can change your choice at any time using "Cookie Preferences" in the footer.

Google may use this data according to its own privacy policy — see Google's Privacy Policy and, if you'd like more detail on Analytics specifically, Google Analytics' data safeguards. You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking across all websites using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, or block it with most ad-blocking or privacy browser extensions.

Affiliate links

Some links on this site — for example, recommendations to find a tutor through italki — are affiliate links. If you sign up or make a purchase through one of these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only link to services we'd genuinely recommend regardless of the affiliate relationship, and this is one of the main ways we keep Lingo Uncharted free to use. Clicking an affiliate link and continuing to that site is subject to that site's own privacy policy and terms, not ours.

We don't currently use any advertising or social media tracking scripts. If that changes, this section will be updated to name the service and explain what it collects.

Data we store in our database

Our database stores the site's own content — dictionary entries, flashcard decks, and blog posts — plus admin login credentials (usernames and securely hashed passwords) for the small number of people who manage the site. It does not store any data about public visitors.

Children's privacy

This site isn't directed at children, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from anyone, regardless of age, since the public site doesn't collect personal information from any visitor in the first place.

Changes to this policy

If the site adds a feature that collects visitor data — a contact form, comments, an email newsletter, or analytics — we'll update this page to describe it before that feature launches, and update the "last updated" date above.

Contact

Questions about this policy or how the site handles data can be sent to [your contact email].