Last updated · Crow Tech Pte. Ltd.
Your study data stays on your device.
Hanzi Desk works without an account and has no advertising or cross-app tracking. Saved words, notes, readings and settings stay on your device, and we don't upload or sync them.
Who we are
Hanzi Desk is made by Crow Tech Pte. Ltd. in Singapore. This policy covers the iPhone and iPad app, the Android app and the website at hanzidesk.com.
iPhone and iPad app
The iOS app works without an account. It has no advertising, analytics or crash-reporting SDKs and no cross-app tracking. Searches run on your device. Saved words, notes, schedules, books, search history, custom dictionaries and settings stay in the app's storage; we don't upload or sync them. Your device backup (iCloud or a computer) may include this data, depending on your device settings; downloaded audio and fonts are left out of it.
Optional camera and photo-library text recognition uses Apple Vision on your device. The app doesn't upload your images or the recognised text to us. Optional voice search uses on-device speech recognition only. Sentence translation (iOS 17.4 and later) uses Apple's Translation framework, and iOS manages its language downloads. Optional device speech uses your operating system and its installed voices.
The app itself contacts only hanzidesk.com, hosted by Cloudflare. It checks the dictionary catalogue when it opens (at most once an hour), downloads a word-frequency file once and, if you use English definitions with Mandarin, downloads the English Wiktionary dictionary in the background. Other dictionaries, fonts and pronunciation audio download when you choose or first use them. Cloudflare processes technical request information, including IP addresses, the files requested and network details, to deliver them, keep the service reliable and protect it, and may keep network and security information under its privacy policy. This is separate from your study content, and we don't use it for advertising or tracking.
You can delete saved words and readings in the app, turn imported dictionaries off, and clear downloaded audio in Settings. Imported dictionaries can't be removed one by one yet; deleting the app removes them. Export a backup before you delete data. A backup leaves the app only when you send it somewhere with the share sheet, and that destination has its own privacy practices. Deleting the app removes its data, apart from device backups you keep. External links are off by default.
Android app
The Android app works without an account. It has no advertising or cross-app tracking. Searches, saved words, notes, schedules, imported books, custom dictionaries and settings stay in the app's storage, and we don't upload or sync them. Android device backups may include this data and your preferences, depending on your device settings; downloaded audio, dictionaries and fonts are left out of them.
Optional camera or photo text recognition uses a Google ML Kit model bundled with the app, on your device. Optional reader translation uses Google ML Kit on your device after you choose to download the language model; that first download needs a connection. ML Kit doesn't send your images, text or translations to Google. Google states that its SDK collects technical device and app information, installation identifiers, performance and error information, feature events and input and output sizes, for diagnostics and usage analytics, and that translation also reports the languages you set and uses Firebase installation and remote-configuration services, which use country, language and time-zone information; the country can be inferred from your network address. These reports are separate from your study content. The app has no advertising, analytics or crash-reporting SDK of our own. See ML Kit's privacy information and its Android data disclosure.
Optional voice search (Android 12 and later) uses a speech-recognition service on your device, with no cloud fallback. Optional device speech uses installed offline voices. Your device's speech services have their own privacy practices. The app asks for microphone access when you first tap voice search. It has no camera or photo permission: to read text from a photo, it opens your camera app or the system photo picker, and only the photo you take or pick reaches Hanzi Desk.
The app's own downloads come from hanzidesk.com, hosted by Cloudflare: the same catalogue check, word-frequency file and English Wiktionary download as on iOS, and the dictionaries, fonts and audio you choose or first use. Cloudflare receives technical request information, including IP addresses and the files requested, to deliver content and protect the service, and may derive an approximate country from IP addresses for aggregate request statistics and protection. Downloaded audio and fonts can be used offline. External links are off by default; opening a link, or sharing text or a backup, sends it to the destination you choose, under that destination's privacy practices.
You can remove saved words and books in the app, turn imported dictionaries off, and clear downloaded audio in Settings. Imported dictionaries can't be removed one by one yet; uninstalling removes them. Export a backup before you delete data. Uninstalling removes the app's data, apart from device backups you keep.
The hanzidesk.com website
No tracking.We don't use advertising trackers, behavioural analytics, tracking pixels or cross-site identifiers. We don't track your activity across websites, and we don't sell or rent your personal information. The website doesn't load a visitor analytics beacon.
Your study data stays in your browser.Saved words, reading material, notes, search history, custom dictionaries and preferences are stored in your browser on this device. Dictionary, font and audio downloads may also be cached there. There is no account and no automatic cloud sync. Readings and images used for text recognition are processed in your browser and are not uploaded to us. Text recognition downloads its software and language data from the jsDelivr content delivery network (cdn.jsdelivr.net), which receives the usual technical information for those downloads. Translation uses your browser's built-in translator where it has one, and the browser may download its own language models. You can export a backup from Settings. Use the data and storage controls in Settings, or your browser's site-data controls, to remove local data; clearing site data can permanently remove saved work unless you have a backup.
Functional storage and cookies. We use browser storage to make the site work and remember your choices. A functional cookie named hanzi-desk-font remembers your Chinese font for up to one year. It is not a tracking cookie.
Hosting and optional services. Cloudflare hosts the website. Like any host, it receives technical request information, such as your IP address, browser details and the URL requested, to deliver content and protect the service. See Cloudflare's privacy policy. Searches can appear in the page URL, so loading or sharing that URL makes the search visible to the host or to whoever receives the link. Recordings play from hanzidesk.com. If you turn on device speech, your browser or operating system provides the voice and may use its own online service. External links and these optional services follow their providers' privacy practices.
Feedback you choose to send. If you send the feedback form, we receive your message, its topic and any name or email address you add; we reply to that address. Cloudflare processes the request and uses its IP address to prevent abuse, allowing three messages a minute; Resend delivers the message to us by email. We use feedback to answer you and to improve and support Hanzi Desk, and keep the correspondence as long as we need it. An unsent draft stays only in the open page.
Crow Tech websites
The crow.sg website, where this page is, uses website analytics, including Google Analytics, as described in our website privacy policy. hanzidesk.com does not. Visiting this page doesn't upload your study data.
Contact and policy changes
For support or privacy questions, or about feedback you have sent, email [email protected]. If you contact us, we keep the correspondence as long as we need it to answer you.
Crow Tech Pte. Ltd.
152 Beach Road, #23-02 Gateway East
Singapore 189721
Changes to this policy appear on this page with a new date.
