Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 25, 2026 (version 1, in force at publication).

This policy explains what personal information Logiciels Scalinata inc., a company of Quebec (Canada) ("we", "us"), collects when you use Pictolang, why, who it is shared with, how long it is kept and how to exercise your rights. It supplements our terms of use. We write it to comply with the Quebec act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (Law 25) and, for people who reside in the European Union, the GDPR. The English version of this policy governs; a French translation is provided for convenience only.

1. What we do not do

• We do not sell your information and we do not rent it.
• There is no advertising, no advertising tracker and no third-party audience-analytics tool in Pictolang. The only exception: on the payment page, the script of our reseller Paddle.com (see the section on cookies).
• We send no promotional email or newsletter: see section 3.
• We make no decision about you based solely on automated processing. The choice of the words offered in your quizzes and the checking of your answers are learning tools: they decide nothing about you outside the service and have no legal effect.

2. The information we collect

What you give us

• Your email address. If you sign in with Google, the name that this service sends us is not kept.
• Your password: it is never kept in clear text, only as a strong fingerprint (hash): we cannot read your password back, only check the one you type.
• Your language choices and settings: the language you know best, the languages you want to learn and their order, and your settings for each language (what is shown at the start of a question, articles, capital letter, letter hints, accent tolerance, display of the plural and of the pronunciation), as well as your interface language (English or French).
• What you do in a quiz: the text you type and the result for each word and each language (for your most recent quiz only). For every quiz you finish, we keep a summary: its date, the number of questions and the number of words answered correctly in each language.
• Your progress: for each word and each language, the number of times you saw it and answered it correctly, your current streak, the date you last saw it, the type of your last error, and whether you have set it aside as a word you know (and when).
• The free access code you enter to get access time, if any.

What your browser sends

• Information sent automatically by your browser: its type (for example Chrome on Windows) and your IP address, which we keep only as a fingerprint (a value computed from the address with a secret key), never in clear text. This fingerprint remains personal information.
• Technical usage events and the errors encountered. Our technical logs do not contain your passwords or the text of your answers.
• The technical logs of our host and of our official reseller, Paddle.com, may contain the IP address.

3. Why we use it

• To provide you with the service: create and secure your account, run the service (quizzes, correction, progress and payment), manage your trial and your plan, write to you about your account (email verification, password reset).
• To reply to your messages.
• To protect the service: limit abusive attempts, detect fraud, diagnose technical errors, enforce the single trial per person and the limit of one free access code per account.
• To comply with the law: our legal obligations (accounting and tax obligations, keeping payments and the address of the person who paid in order to answer a request or a dispute, proof of acceptance of the terms).

Emails. We use your email address only to send you service emails, related to your account, your access or your plan, to the security of the service, or to a change to our terms or this policy. They are essential to the service and you cannot unsubscribe from them as long as you have an account.

If someone enters your address to sign up without your consent, you receive a confirmation email by mistake. You may then ask us to stop writing to you: we put your address on a do-not-send list (see section 6), and no account can be opened with it anymore.

We send no promotions and no newsletters and we do not pass your address to third parties so that they do so. If this were to change, we would ask you first, with a separate checkbox and a simple way to unsubscribe.

Free access codes. A code entered at sign-up is kept on your account until your email address is confirmed, then it is applied and erased from that place. We then keep the use of the code (the code used, the date of use, the new end date of access) to enforce the limit of a single use of each code per account. A code gives only access time: it has no link with your payment method.

Organization accounts. If your account is provided by an organization, the organization administrator sees your progress (see section 2). They see neither your password nor the text of your answers. A notice ("Your organization sees your progress.") is shown in the service. Organization accounts with an email address also receive service emails, for example the invitation sent by the organization. An account without an email address receives no email, no notification, no advertising: for a lost password, the organization administrator generates a new, temporary one, which you must replace at your next sign-in.

Consent. We do not ask you for a separate consent: your information is used to provide the service. If a processing activity ever required it, we would ask for a separate checkbox, and you could withdraw it. At sign-up, the checkbox serves only to accept the terms of use and this policy.

We use your information for no other purpose without informing you. For residents of the European Union, our legal bases are the performance of the contract (providing the service), our legitimate interest (security, prevention of abuse), our legal obligations and, where applicable, your consent.

4. Cookies

Pictolang uses only cookies that are strictly necessary for the service you request:

• a session cookie: it keeps you signed in (30 days at most, 7 days without activity);
• security cookies that protect your forms: they disappear when you close the browser;
• a language cookie that remembers your choice of interface language (English or French);
• at sign-up only, a temporary cookie used to redisplay the email address you entered, so that you can check that it is correct;
• only if you sign in with Google, a temporary cookie that protects the exchange with Google.

They are used for no advertising, tracking or audience measurement, and Pictolang loads no content from another site, with a single exception: the payment page, which loads the script of our reseller Paddle.com (Paddle.js) and shows its payment window. Paddle may use there its own cookies and technologies, necessary for payment and fraud prevention, in accordance with its own privacy policy. The browser may also keep the static files of the site (images, styles) in memory to speed it up; this memory contains no personal data. Because these cookies are essential to the service you request, they do not require consent; blocking them will prevent you from signing in.

5. Who we share it with

Only with providers that help us operate Pictolang, and only for what they have to do:

• a host (servers and database), whose data centres may be located in Canada or abroad;
• a storage provider, separate from the host, that keeps our backup copies and whose servers may also be located in Canada or abroad;
• an email delivery provider, located outside Canada, to which we entrust the delivery of our messages: it receives the recipient's address and the content of the message, and cannot use them for its own account;
• Our official reseller, Paddle.com (Merchant of Record): it is the seller of your plan; it collects the payment, collects and remits the taxes, and receives the payment data you provide to it, as well as the email address of your account, which we send it to prefill the payment page and send your receipt. It processes them under its own privacy policy, for which it is responsible;
• Google, if you choose that sign-in method.

We may also disclose information if the law or a court order requires it, or to protect our rights against fraud. If the business were sold or merged, the information would follow, under the same commitments.

If your account is provided by an organization, the organization administrators see your progress (see section 2) and manage your account (creation, removal, temporary password for an account without an email address). We give them access to no other information about you, and no organization sees the accounts of another.

Only authorized staff of Logiciels Scalinata inc. have access to the data.

Where the data is processed

Your information, as well as its backup copies, is hosted with our providers, which may be located in Canada or abroad: it may therefore be processed outside Quebec and Canada. Some of our providers (Paddle.com, the official reseller that processes payment, the Google sign-in service if you choose it) and our email delivery provider, located outside Canada, may process part of this information outside Quebec and Canada. We entrust it to them only with contractual protection commitments equivalent to those required by the applicable law.

6. How long we keep it

Information	Duration
Individual account (free trial or paid plan)	As long as you use it. The account is deleted 90 days after your last sign-in; if you have a paid plan, these 90 days are counted from the end of the paid period or your last sign-in, whichever is later. A paid plan in progress never causes the account to be deleted. We send no email before the deletion. You may also delete your account yourself, at any time: it is then erased immediately, with no delay and no possibility of recovering it.
Your progress (words seen, answered correctly and set aside, per language), your language settings and the summaries of the quizzes you finished	As long as the account exists; they are erased with it. You can also reset your progress yourself from "My data", which also puts all your set-aside words back in play.
Text you typed and the results for each word	Only your most recent quiz keeps its detail. When a more recent quiz replaces it, the detail of the previous one is erased. We keep only the quiz summaries and your progress, described above.
Organization member account (including without an email address)	Access is blocked as soon as the organization removes you or its access ends; the account and its data are erased 90 days later.
Organization invitation (single-use link)	7 days; only the fingerprint of the link is kept.
Account whose email address was never confirmed	7 days after sign-up, erased automatically (most often, an address entered by mistake).
Sessions and security tokens	Until they expire, then erased at the latest 30 days later.
Event and error logs (IP address fingerprint, browser type)	90 days.
Log of service emails sent (fingerprint of the recipient's address, message type, date, fingerprint of the content: used to limit the number of emails sent to the same address)	7 days.
Administration audit log	1 year.
Free access code entered at sign-up, not yet applied	Until your email address is confirmed (it is then applied and erased), or until the unconfirmed account is erased (7 days).
Use of a free access code (the code used, the date of use, the new end date of access)	With the account; it no longer identifies you once the account is deleted.
Payment records (amount, taxes, date and email address of the person who paid)	Kept 6 years (the period required by accounting and tax law), even after your account is deleted. The email address is used only to answer a request or a dispute about this payment; it is erased after 6 years.
Refunded customers (email address, customer identifier with our reseller, date of the refund)	Kept 6 years after the refund, even if you close your account (see below), then erased.
Proof of acceptance of the terms	Kept after the account is deleted. The email address may be kept in our records and logs for 6 years, for dispute purposes and for legal reasons.
Fingerprint of your email address (free trial already used) and identifiers banned for abuse	The fingerprint of the address is kept 12 months after the account is deleted, then erased: it is used so as not to offer the free trial twice. It is not the address itself, but it makes it possible to recognize that an address has already been used, and it remains personal information. Identifiers banned for abuse are kept as long as needed to prevent abuse.
Address on our do-not-send list	If you ask us to stop writing to you, or if an abusive sign-up uses your address, we put that address (or its domain) on a list: no email is sent to it anymore and no account can be opened with it. It is kept as long as necessary to honour that request and prevent abuse, even without an account; you may ask us to remove it (section 11).

After a refund

When a refund is granted, we keep the following information, even if you close your account:

• your email address;
• your customer identifier with our official reseller, Paddle.com;
• the date of the refund.

This information is used only to prevent refund abuse: if you wish to buy again after a refund, we will ask you to contact us. It is never sold or shared, except with Paddle.com, our official reseller, for payment processing. It is kept for 6 years, then deleted.

At the time of a refund, we also copy into the payment record a summary of your use (number of quizzes, number of different words, dates of first and last activity), without the text of your answers. It is used to answer an abusive refund request or a dispute, and it is kept with the payment record, for 6 years.

7. Your rights

You may request:

• access to the information we hold about you, and a copy, including in a structured, commonly used format (portability: being able to retrieve your data to take it elsewhere);
• rectification of inaccurate information;
• deletion of your information and your account;
• to withdraw a consent given, where applicable, to restrict a processing or to object to it, where the law provides for it.

From "My data", you can delete your account yourself: it is then erased immediately and permanently. You can also reset your progress while keeping your account, and close all your sessions ("Sign out everywhere"). When your trial or your plan ends, your account stays open but limited: your progress and your set-aside words, the help, the choice of a plan, "My data" and signing out remain available, but not the quizzes.

If your account is provided by an organization, it is managed by the organization: you can contact the organization administrator, and there is no self-service deletion for this account.

The account email address cannot be changed: to use another one, create a new account.

For any request about your information, write to us with the subject "Privacy". We may ask you to confirm your identity, and we reply within 30 days. If you are not satisfied, you may file a complaint with the data protection authority of your region or country.

8. Security

We protect your information with measures suited to its sensitivity: encrypted connection (HTTPS), passwords kept as a strong hash and at least 15 characters long, session tokens kept as a fingerprint, access to data limited to what is strictly necessary. As no system is infallible, we keep a register of privacy incidents and, if an incident presents a risk of serious harm, we notify you and the competent authority.

When an organization (a school, for example) enrolls minor students (under 18, or under the age of majority in their country), it is the organization that declares that it holds the authorization of the parent or guardian required by law (in Quebec, Law 25) and that is responsible for it: Logiciels Scalinata inc. does not collect any consent in its place (see section 2). The accounts of young students may have no email address and carry only a pseudonym or a number chosen by the organization (which we ask to enter neither a first name nor a last name); no email, no notification and no advertising is ever sent to them. The parent or guardian contacts the organization, or us through the contact form on the scalinatasoftware.com site, to exercise their rights.

10. Changes to this policy

We may change it. For a significant change, we notify you with at least 30 days' notice by email or by a notice in the service. The date at the top of the page shows the version in force.

11. Contact us

Logiciels Scalinata inc., through the contact form on the scalinatasoftware.com site (subject "Privacy"). This form is shared: it is operated by the site of Logiciels Scalinata inc. (scalinatasoftware.com), and not by Pictolang, which keeps no contact messages.

The person in charge of the protection of personal information at Logiciels Scalinata inc. is the head of the company. Their contact details go through the same contact form (subject "Privacy"): your requests for access, rectification and deletion and your questions about this policy are received and handled there.