Related: Cookie Policy · AI Transparency · Data Processing Agreement · Terms of Service
The data controller for personal data processed through Lingu English is:
Lingu Ltd (formerly Perfectly Spoken Limited)
Registered in England and Wales, company number 09197891
29a Crown Street, Brentwood, Essex, CM14 4BA, United Kingdom
Email: hello@lingu.com
Lingu Ltd is part of the Lingu group. Our parent company, Lingu AS (organisation number 912 774 031, Gartnerveien 4, 4016 Stavanger, Norway), develops and operates the Lingu learning platform. It processes personal data on our behalf, as our data processor, under a signed data processing agreement.
EU representative. Because we are based in the UK and offer our programmes to people in the EU and EEA, we have appointed a representative under Article 27 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation. You can contact our representative instead of us about any data protection matter:
Xela (Maria Gracia) Falgueras
Cardedeu, Spain
Email: xela@lingu.com
Data Protection Officer. We are not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer and have not done so. Write to hello@lingu.com with “Privacy” in the subject line, and your message goes to the person responsible for privacy.
This policy applies when you buy from or sign up with Lingu English through lingu.com, or when an organisation gives you access through Lingu Ltd. It covers lingu.com, our learning platform at app.lingu.com and my.lingu.com, our sign-in services and the Lingu mobile apps.
The learning platform is shared across the Lingu group. If you signed up through lingu.no, Lingu AS is responsible for your data and the lingu.no privacy policy applies instead.
We process personal data in line with:
“Personal data” means any information that can be linked to you as a person. “Processing” means anything we do with it, such as collecting, storing, using, sharing or deleting it.
We may occasionally process personal data in ways not described here. If so, we will tell you separately before or when it happens.
We collect only what we need to teach you, run your account, take payment, keep Lingu safe and, where you allow it, tell you about our programmes.
We do not ask for sensitive information such as health, religion, ethnic origin, political views or trade union membership. Please do not share it in classes, chats, AI practice or job applications. If you tell us about a disability so we can make adjustments, we use it only for that purpose and only with your explicit consent.
| Activity | Data used | Lawful basis | How long we keep it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your account and sign-in | 3.1 | Contract | Until our lawful basis ends: while your account is active, then as long as we need it for the purposes below |
| Placement test and level recommendation | 3.2 | Steps you ask for before a contract; contract | Until our lawful basis ends. If you do not enrol, until you stop receiving follow-up from us |
| Delivering programmes, teacher feedback and certificates | 3.3 | Contract | Until our lawful basis ends. Records we must keep by law are kept for 5 years |
| Live classes | 3.4 | Contract; legitimate interests (safe, well-run classes) | Not recorded. Chat and board content is kept with your learning records |
| AI practice | 3.5 | Contract | With your learning records, or until you delete it |
| Payments, invoices and refunds | 3.6 | Contract; legal obligation (accounting and tax) | Accounting records are kept permanently in our financial archive |
| Fraud prevention and payment security | 3.6, 3.1 | Legitimate interests | As long as needed for the check, then with payment records |
| Customer contact and support | 3.7 | Legitimate interests (answering and documenting enquiries); contract where it concerns your programme | Until no follow-up is expected |
| Service messages (class changes, renewal reminders, security notices) | 3.1 | Contract; legal obligation (consumer law) | As long as you are a customer |
| Newsletters and marketing emails | 3.1, 3.2, 3.8 | Consent; for existing customers in the UK, similar-product marketing with an unsubscribe link in every message | Until you withdraw consent or unsubscribe. We keep a minimal do-not-contact record so we respect your choice |
| Website analytics and campaign measurement | 3.8 | Consent | Until you withdraw consent, and no longer than each cookie’s lifetime (Cookie Policy) |
| Referral programme | 3.8 | Legitimate interests (letting you invite friends) | Until the referral is settled |
| Testimonials and stories | 3.8 | Consent | Until you withdraw permission for future use |
| Reports to your employer, school or partner | 3.3, 3.9 | We act as processor (section 5) | As instructed by the organisation |
| Business customers, partners, agents and suppliers | 3.10 | Legitimate interests (managing business relationships); legal obligation (accounting) | Until the relationship ends or the person is no longer our contact, except accounting records |
| Webinars and events | Name, contact details, registration | Contract; legitimate interests when you attend for a business | Until our lawful basis ends. Dietary or access needs are deleted right after the event |
| Recruiting teachers and staff, including AI-assisted screening (section 11) | 3.10 | Steps before an employment or service contract; legitimate interests (recruiting efficiently, further checks and keeping you in our talent pool); consent for any sensitive data | One year after the last activity on your application, so we can consider you for future roles; then deleted automatically. You can ask us to delete it sooner. If you are engaged, your employment record is kept permanently in our employment register for historical archive purposes |
| Our social media pages | Your name, profile link, comments, likes and messages | Legitimate interests (talking with the public). We are joint controller with the platform for page statistics | As long as your post or comment is published |
| Security, error monitoring and system logs | IP address, device data, logins, error reports | Legitimate interests; legal obligation to keep data secure | Only as long as needed to keep the service secure and fix errors, then deleted |
| Legal claims and requests from authorities | Any relevant data | Legal obligation; legitimate interests | As long as the matter requires |
| Disability adjustments | Health information you choose to share | Explicit consent | Until the programme ends, or earlier if you withdraw consent |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed our interests against your privacy and concluded they do not override it. You can ask us for this assessment and object at any time (section 14).
When the retention period ends, we delete your data or make it anonymous so it can no longer be linked to you.
When an employer, school, public body or partner buys Lingu for its learners, that organisation is the data controller for the learner data it gives us and for the progress reports we send back. We are its data processor. We process that data only on the organisation’s documented instructions, under a data processing agreement, and delete or return it when the agreement ends.
In that case, contact the organisation to exercise your rights. If you contact us, we will pass your request on or tell you who to contact.
Even then, we remain controller for a few things we decide ourselves: system monitoring and error correction, security and abuse prevention, compliance with our legal obligations, and service messages about how the platform works. Statistics we produce from this data never identify individual learners.
We do not sell your personal data. We share it only where this policy says so or where the law allows:
Our list of data processors. If you have a Lingu account, you can see the named list of our data processors, what each one does and where it processes data at app.lingu.com/data_processors (sign in required). If you do not have an account, email hello@lingu.com and we will send it to you.
Our learning platform is hosted in data centres in Helsinki (Finland) and Frankfurt (Germany). The AI models used for conversation practice and writing review run in data centres in Sweden, and we send them only the limited personal data needed for each request.
Some service providers are based in or can access data from other countries such as the United States: for example for payments, analytics and campaign measurement, and Anthropic, whose AI models power our support assistant and our recruitment screening. When data is transferred, we use one of the safeguards the law allows: a country the UK or EU has approved as adequate, including providers certified under the UK–US data bridge or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework; or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum and the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, together with a transfer risk assessment.
You can ask which safeguard applies to a transfer, and for a copy, at hello@lingu.com.
The table in section 4 gives the retention period for each activity. In general:
We protect your data with technical and organisational measures matched to the risk, including encryption in transit, access limited to people who need it, sign-in protection for staff, logging and monitoring, backups and risk assessments.
Everyone who processes data for us is bound by confidentiality and by a data processing agreement that requires the same level of security as ours.
If a personal data breach is likely to put your rights at risk, we notify the relevant regulator within 72 hours of finding out. If the risk to you is high, we also tell you directly.
Cookies are small text files stored in your browser. We use necessary cookies to run the site, your login and payments. We use tracking cookies only if you accept them in our cookie banner.
| Service | Purpose | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Session and sign-in cookies (lingu.com, app.lingu.com, my.lingu.com and our sign-in services) | Keep you signed in and protect sign-in | Necessary |
| Cookie choice and time zone | Remember your cookie choices and show times in your time zone | Necessary |
| Stripe | Secure payments and prevent fraud | Necessary |
| Google reCAPTCHA | Protect forms from spam and abuse | Necessary |
| Intercom | Customer support chat | Necessary |
| Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager | Statistics on how the site is used | Tracking, with consent |
| Segment | Combining analytics data | Tracking, with consent |
| Meta Pixel | Measuring sign-ups from our campaigns | Tracking, with consent |
| Facebook SDK | Social features | Tracking, with consent |
Cookie names, providers and lifetimes are listed in our Cookie Policy. You can change your choices at any time under Cookie settings at the bottom of every page. Rejecting tracking cookies does not affect your access to Lingu.
Lingu uses artificial intelligence to help you practise between teacher-led sessions, by chatting with you in conversation practice and reviewing your essays and other texts. Our support chat and email inbox also use AI to help answer your messages, and we use AI to help our recruiters review job applications.
When you apply to teach or work with us, an AI system reads your application and documents against the criteria we have set for the role, for example teaching qualifications, teaching experience, and experience with student recruitment, social media and video. It produces a short assessment, a fit score, skill tags, strengths, concerns and suggested interview questions for our recruiters. It is instructed to ignore and never record characteristics such as age, gender, nationality, ethnic origin, religion, health, photo or marital status.
The AI output is decision support only. It never rejects an application, moves you through our process, contacts you or shortlists you; a member of our team makes and records every decision. You can ask us to assess your application without AI screening, ask how your application was assessed, and contest any outcome, by emailing hello@lingu.com.
More detail is on our AI Transparency page.
We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing, including profiling, that have legal effects or similarly significant effects on you. AI feedback in practice activities is guidance only, and AI screening of job applications only supports the person who decides (section 11.1).
You must be at least 16 to use Lingu English. If we learn that we hold data about someone under 16, we delete it. Contact hello@lingu.com if you think this has happened.
Where we are the controller, you have the right to:
Much of your data can be seen and changed in your account. To exercise any right, email hello@lingu.com. We may ask you to confirm your identity so we only release data to you. We respond within one month. If your request is complex we may need up to two more months, and we will tell you if so.
If an organisation enrolled you, see section 5.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, please tell us first so we can put it right as quickly as possible.
You can also complain to a data protection regulator:
Our site may link to websites and services we do not control. They have their own privacy policies, and we are not responsible for how they process your data.
If you live elsewhere, for example in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or South Korea, local data protection laws may give you additional rights. We honour them. Where your local law requires specific consent, for example to transfer your data abroad, we will ask for it. Contact hello@lingu.com to exercise your rights.
We update this policy when our services or the law change, and show the date at the top. If a change affects you significantly and we have your contact details, we will tell you by email or in the app.
Lingu Ltd · 29a Crown Street, Brentwood, Essex, CM14 4BA, United Kingdom · Company number 09197891
Email: hello@lingu.com
EU representative: Xela (Maria Gracia) Falgueras, Cardedeu, Spain · xela@lingu.com
Use this form to ask about your personal data, exercise your rights (access, correction, deletion, restriction, objection, portability, or a human review of an AI-assisted decision), or make a complaint. We will reply by email, usually within one month.