Privacy

Who is responsible

TEF Trainer is the controller of the personal information described here, and "we" below means TEF Trainer. Write to support@teftrainer.com about anything on this page, including a request to see or delete what we hold.

Practising without an account

The free tier needs no account and no card. 144 questions and 32 topics are open to anyone.

Your answers, your scores and your settings are written to your own browser's storage on your own device. They are not sent to us, we cannot read them, and clearing your browser data deletes them for good. If you sign in later, your browser offers that history to your new account once, and then clears its copy.

If you sign in

Signing in uses your Google account. There is no password, so there is none for us to store. From Google we receive what you see on the consent screen, and we keep three things from it: your email address, because that is what your plan is attached to, and your name and the link to your Google profile picture, which the app shows beside your account.

Each sign in also keeps a record that you are signed in: when it started, when it expires, and a short description of the browser it came from, so we can tell your devices apart. We keep the cookie that matches it only in a scrambled form, so the record on its own cannot sign anyone in.

After that we store the attempts you make: which quiz, when, what you answered, and how long you took, and the speaking and writing topics you mark as done. That is what the history and your progress in the app are built from.

Your account has a short code for its invite link. If you joined through a friend's link, we keep whose it was; they see how many friends joined, never who. We also keep which extra quizzes you unlocked.

If you buy a plan

Payment is taken by Polar Software, Inc., which sells the plan to you as merchant of record. You give your payment details to Polar, not to us: we never see a card number, and your receipt and card statement name Polar rather than us.

You sign in before you buy. To open the checkout we give Polar your account's email address and an internal account number, and Polar tells us back which account paid and for which plan, so we can switch it on. We keep the email address, the plan, Polar's order number and the date your access runs to. From time to time we ask Polar whether the plan is still active, so a refund reaches your access. Polar's own privacy terms cover what it does with the rest.

Analytics, and what they are not

We count page views on our own server so that we know what people read. Each view records the page, the country, city and Cloudflare location the request came from, where it was linked from, and whether the device is a phone or a desktop. It is kept for 90 days.

To count a visit rather than a click, a page view carries a random identifier in a cookie that lasts 30 minutes from your last page view. It is not tied to you and it is not kept after the window closes.

We also use Google Analytics, to see how people find the site and use it: the pages you view, the site that sent you, your device and browser, your rough location, and a few steps we mark, such as starting or finishing a quiz, opening checkout and a completed purchase. Its cookies recognise your browser when you come back. We never send Google your name, email address or account, and its advertising features are off. A content blocker, or Google's own opt-out browser add-on, stops it.

And Microsoft Clarity, which records how pages are used: where people click, how far they scroll and where they get stuck, played back as the page looked. Your name, email address and Google picture, and anything you type, are hidden in your browser before a recording is sent. Microsoft receives what Clarity collects and can also use it for its own services, advertising among them, as the Microsoft Privacy Statement explains. A content blocker stops it too.

And Cloudflare Web Analytics, which measures how quickly pages load. It sets no cookies.

There is no advertising here, and nothing about you is sold.

Cookies

Eight on this site, and we use none of them for advertising:

• the analytics cookie above, which lasts 30 minutes from your last page view;
• two Google Analytics cookies, _ga and one starting _ga_, which last up to two years from your last visit;
• two Microsoft Clarity cookies, _clck, which lasts a year, and _clsk, which lasts a day;
• while you sign in, a cookie that carries the attempt through Google's screen and back, which lasts 10 minutes and is removed as soon as you are signed in;
• if you open a friend's invite link, a cookie that remembers it until you sign in, which lasts 30 days and is removed when you sign in;
• once you are signed in, a cookie that keeps you signed in. It lasts 30 days, renewed while you keep using the site, and signing out removes it.

Clarity also has Microsoft set cookies on its own domains, clarity.ms and bing.com, such as MUID, which recognise your browser across Microsoft's services, advertising included, for up to 13 months. That is the lot.

Who else processes it

We keep the list short on purpose, because every company on it is one more that can see something about you.

• Cloudflare: hosting, the database, file storage, our own page analytics, and delivering email sent to us.
• Google: analytics, sign in if you choose to sign in, and the mailbox where email to us is kept.
• Microsoft: recordings of how the site is used (Clarity).
• Polar Software, Inc.: payment, as merchant of record, if you buy a plan.
• Resend: sending our replies, if you write to us.

The site runs on Cloudflare's network, which spans many countries, and Google, Microsoft and Polar are based in the United States, so your information may be handled outside Canada.

How long it is kept

Our own analytics, 90 days; Google Analytics, 14 months; Clarity recordings, 30 days, and its heatmaps and the few recordings it keeps longer, 13 months. A sign in stops working when you sign out or after 30 days unused, and its record goes when you sign out or delete your account. Your account, your attempts and your plan, until you ask us to delete them. Records of a purchase for as long as tax law requires them to be kept.

What you can ask for

You can ask for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete your account and everything attached to it. One email to support@teftrainer.com is enough, and we answer within a few days.

Deleting your account does not undo a purchase: Polar keeps its own record of a sale, because it has to.

Children

TEF Trainer is for people sitting an exam for work or immigration purposes. It is not aimed at children, and we do not knowingly collect anything from them.

Changes to this policy

The date at the top says when this last changed. If a change matters, we say so here rather than quietly editing a line.