Wordbridge AAC Privacy Policy

Wordbridge AAC does not send us:

• The words on your communication board
• Sentences or messages you construct
• Your AAC utterances
• Your communication sessions
• Word-prediction data
• Your board configuration
• Names typed onto communication keys
• Your profiles or profile settings
• Your edit history
• Photographs you add to the app
• Your caregiver PIN
• Your local usage history

These things may be processed or stored locally by the app because they are necessary for its functionality, but they are not transmitted to us as the developers.

We do not use this information for advertising, sell it to advertisers, or use it to create advertising profiles.

Wordbridge AAC stores information locally when it is needed to provide its features. Local storage is not the same thing as information being collected by Wordbridge AAC.

Communication boards and profiles

The app may store your boards, cells, buttons, symbols, vocabularies, pictures, and names typed onto keys.

It may also store profile information such as a display name, birth date, and communication settings, including voice, rate, pitch, volume, activation, dwell, grid, and vocabulary settings.

This information stays on your device and is not sent to us.

Usage history

If usage tracking is enabled, Wordbridge AAC keeps a local usage history so the app can provide its remapping warning. The history records things such as which location on a board was reached, which button or cell was involved, what action occurred, and when.

Importantly, the usage history does not store the word, label, sentence, session, or utterance associated with that location.

However, there is an important limitation to understand: because the local usage history records locations and times, and the board itself identifies what is located there, someone with access to the device could potentially use those two pieces of information together to reconstruct some communication patterns.

This is one reason the usage history is kept entirely on the device and is never transmitted to Wordbridge AAC.

You can delete usage history from Settings → Usage tracking → Delete usage history. Turning usage tracking off prevents new history from being recorded.

When a word is moved to a different location, Wordbridge AAC deletes the usage history associated with the previous occupant of that location.

Word prediction

If word prediction is enabled, Wordbridge AAC learns word-to-word relationships locally on the device.

This information is never sent to us.

You can clear it using Settings → Grammar → Reset word prediction.

Edit history

Wordbridge AAC may maintain a local edit history so that changes can be undone and caregivers can review changes made to a board.

Edit history is stored locally and is never sent to us.

Caregiver PIN

If a caregiver PIN is configured, Wordbridge AAC does not store the PIN itself. The PIN is represented by a salted SHA-256 hash, with the salt stored using the device's secure storage facilities.

The PIN is never transmitted to us.

Pictures

Pictures added by a caregiver are processed and stored locally.

Wordbridge AAC resizes and re-encodes these photographs and removes EXIF metadata, including GPS coordinates and camera information that may have been added by the device.

The pictures are never sent to us.

Backups

Wordbridge AAC can create a backup of its local database within the app's device storage. A backup contains the locally stored app data, including usage history.

Your device's operating-system backup service may independently copy application data to a service such as iCloud or Google backup, depending on your device settings. Those backups are controlled by your device and its operating system, not by Wordbridge AAC.

If you deliberately copy a backup somewhere else, Wordbridge AAC has no access to that copy and cannot delete it.

There are three situations in which information may be sent to our systems: crash reports, optional voice-performance measurements, and reports that a person deliberately submits.

Crash reports

Crash reporting is enabled by default and is presented as a per-profile setting during setup. You can turn it off.

When enabled, if Wordbridge AAC encounters a fault, the app records diagnostic information locally and sends the report on the next time the app is launched. The report is sent automatically. You do not have to press a button to submit it.

Crash reports may contain:

• The Wordbridge AAC app version and build
• The device platform, operating-system version, device model, and locale
• General board configuration such as grid dimensions, vocabulary level, and speech engine
• The time the fault occurred
• A scrubbed technical stack trace
• Optional neural voice-performance measurements, if those measurements have been enabled

Automatic crash reports do not contain your name, board words, sentences, location, contacts, account information, or an identifier of you or your device.

The usage-log device identifier is not attached to crash reports.

Before a crash report is sent, Wordbridge AAC scrubs information that could expose sensitive content. Text inside quotation marks and filesystem paths are replaced with a visible marker. The report is also checked to prevent a profile name from being transmitted. Stack traces are limited in length, and the complete report is subject to a size limit.

Crash reports are used to diagnose software failures and improve the reliability of Wordbridge AAC. They are not used for advertising or sold to advertisers.

Crash reports are sent to infrastructure operated by Wordbridge AAC. They are stored in our object storage and may also be delivered to us by email so that we can investigate the problem.

Neural voice performance measurements

Neural voice measurements are off by default and can be explicitly enabled for a profile.

When enabled, Wordbridge AAC may include performance measurements with a crash report or manually submitted report. These measurements help us determine whether the neural voice system performs adequately on real devices.

The measurements may include:

• A voice identifier
• Timing budgets
• The number of fallbacks
• A classified reason for each fallback
• The number of words involved in a fallback

The actual words are not sent. Only the number of words in an utterance is recorded in these measurements.

Fallback reasons are reduced to a fixed set of categories, such as voice unavailable, over budget, failed, or other. Free-form error text is not transmitted.

Voice measurements are not sent independently. They are attached to a crash report or manually submitted report.

Reports and feedback submitted by a person

Wordbridge AAC allows a person to submit a bug report, feature request, or other feedback.

These reports are sent only when someone explicitly presses the send button.

A submitted report may contain:

• A free-text note of up to 4,000 characters
• The Wordbridge AAC app version and build
• Device platform, operating-system version, device model, and locale
• General board configuration such as grid dimensions, vocabulary level, and speech engine

The complete report is displayed on screen before it is sent, after the same applicable scrubbing process has been applied.

Because a person deliberately writes the contents of a report, they should avoid including communication content or other sensitive information that they do not want to send to us.

Submitted reports are used to investigate bugs, respond to feedback, and consider feature requests. They are not sold or used for advertising.

Wordbridge AAC can search online picture and symbol services when someone chooses to use those services.

When an online picture search is performed, the word being searched for is sent directly to the selected service. Depending on your settings, searches may be sent to:

• Global Symbols
• ARASAAC

The resulting image is then retrieved from the applicable service.

These searches are not sent to Wordbridge AAC. We do not receive a copy of the search request or the information returned by these services.

Those services process requests according to their own privacy policies and terms. Your use of an online picture service is therefore subject to that service's policies.

Pictures included with Wordbridge AAC itself do not require a network request.

When the neural voice feature is enabled, Wordbridge AAC may download the required neural voice model.

This is an ordinary file download. Wordbridge AAC does not send your communication content as part of this request.

Wordbridge AAC does not include an analytics SDK.

We do not use an advertising identifier.

We do not use third-party telemetry services.

We do not sell personal information or communication data to advertisers.

We do not use your communication activity to target advertisements.

Our telemetry and diagnostic information is collected only for purposes such as diagnosing crashes, understanding software performance, improving reliability, and fixing bugs.

Information that reaches Wordbridge AAC is used for limited purposes related to operating and improving the application.

Those purposes include:

• Diagnosing and fixing crashes
• Investigating bugs
• Measuring neural voice performance
• Improving application performance and reliability
• Responding to bug reports and feature requests

We do not use information received through these mechanisms to sell advertising, build advertising profiles, or sell information to third parties.

Data stored only on your device

You control locally stored Wordbridge AAC data through the app and your device.

• Usage history: Settings → Usage tracking → Delete usage history
• Word prediction: Settings → Grammar → Reset word prediction
• All local application data: uninstalling Wordbridge AAC removes the app's local data and local backups from the device

A copy of a backup that has been moved somewhere outside the app is not accessible to Wordbridge AAC and cannot be deleted by us.

Reports already sent to Wordbridge AAC

If you need us to locate or delete information contained in a report that has already been submitted, contact us at support@wordbridgeaac.com and provide the report's reference code when available.

We will handle deletion requests in accordance with applicable law and our ability to identify the relevant report.

Wordbridge AAC is intended for nonspeaking people of any age, including adults. It is not designed exclusively for children.

Because Wordbridge AAC may be used by people of many ages, this Privacy Policy applies regardless of the user's age.

Parents, caregivers, and other responsible adults should review the app's privacy settings with the person using Wordbridge AAC when appropriate.

We take reasonable measures to protect information that is transmitted to and stored by Wordbridge AAC.

The design of Wordbridge AAC also minimizes the information that needs to leave the device in the first place. Communication content and most information associated with a user's board remain local rather than being transmitted to our servers.

We may update this Privacy Policy when Wordbridge AAC changes or when legal requirements change.

If we make material changes to how Wordbridge AAC collects, uses, or shares information, we will provide appropriate notice.

The effective date at the beginning of this policy indicates when the current version took effect.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or about information contained in a report submitted to Wordbridge AAC, contact:

Email: support@wordbridgeaac.com

Wordbridge AAC is a communication tool. The things a person communicates can be among the most personal information they have.

We therefore designed Wordbridge AAC around a simple principle: the information needed to communicate should stay with the person communicating whenever possible.

When we need diagnostic information, we collect the minimum information needed to understand the technical problem rather than collecting the content of someone's communication.

Your communication belongs to you.