Who this app is for
Curious Reader Parents is a free app from the nonprofit Curious Learning that helps children learn to read through offline phonics games and illustrated books. It is designed to be used by a parent or guardian together with a child, typically ages 4–10. The parent installs the app and uses the parent dashboard and settings; the child plays the games and reads the books.
This policy also covers the language-specific editions of the app published for research studies (for example “Curious Reader - Hausa”). They are the same app with one language included; the section Research study editions below explains the one additional piece of information they can collect.
What Curious Reader Parents does not do
Curious Reader Parents has no user accounts, no login and no password, and shows no ads of any kind. It does not request your location. It does not collect your name, photos, camera data, contacts or biometric information. It does not use an advertising identifier (such as a device’s Advertising ID) and cannot be used to track you or your child across other apps.
Children’s information
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. Nothing a child does in the app is linked to a name, a photo or an account: the avatar a child picks is a stock picture, and the usage information described below is tied only to a random installation ID.
Notifications
With your permission, Curious Reader Parents can send a daily reminder to help build a reading habit. The reminder is scheduled entirely on your phone, and you can turn it off at any time in Settings.
Anonymous usage data
To understand which languages and stories are helping children learn, and where our program is and is not reaching families, the app records anonymous usage information: which languages, games and books are used, how much time is spent in each, progress through the games, the country the app was installed in (taken from the phone’s language and region setting, not from location services), the app version, and the date of install. This information is associated with a random ID that the app generates for your installation (your “Device ID”, shown in Settings), not with your name, email or any account. It is sent to Curious Learning’s own database, built on Google Firebase and Google BigQuery, so our team can see program usage and improve the app. We do not sell this information.
Crash reports
If the app crashes, a technical report (the error, the app version and the phone model, with an installation identifier) is sent to Google Firebase Crashlytics so we can fix the problem. Crash reports contain no personal information.
Campaign measurement
Curious Learning runs advertising campaigns to reach more families, and we want to know whether those campaigns are working. To measure that, the app reports a small number of milestones, such as opening the app for the first time or reaching a certain amount of play time, to Google’s and Meta’s advertising measurement tools. This measurement does not use an advertising identifier: we do not collect or share the Advertising ID (Android) or IDFA (iOS), so this data cannot be used to build a profile of your child or to track them across other apps or websites. It is used only to understand, in aggregate, whether our campaigns are effective, and never to show ads inside the app.
Research study editions
Curious Learning takes part in research studies that evaluate whether the app helps children learn to read. For a study, we publish editions of the app for the study’s languages (for example “Curious Reader - Hausa”, “Curious Reader - Bangla”). If you were invited to install one of these editions after completing a study survey, the following applies:
- Linking the app to your survey. When you install the app from the link at the end of the survey, Google Play passes the app a code that identifies your survey response. The app stores this code with its installation ID so that the research team can connect how the app is used with the answers you gave in the survey. The code contains no personal information.
- Your mobile number. If that code does not reach the app (for example because the app was installed another way), the app asks you, the parent, for the mobile number you gave when joining the study. Entering it is optional; you can tap Skip. The number is used only to connect your installation to your survey response. It is stored in Curious Learning’s database and is shared with the research team conducting the study (for the 2026 study, the World Bank), who already hold it from your enrolment. Use of the number is governed by the study’s ethics approval (IRB) and your consent to the study. It is not used for marketing and is never sold.
- What the research team receives. The research team receives the anonymous usage data described above for study installations, together with the survey code and, where entered, the mobile number. They do not receive anything else from your phone.
- Retention. Study data, including the mobile number, is kept for the duration of the study and deleted or anonymised at its end as set out in the study’s data agreement.
Requesting deletion of your data
You can ask us to delete the data associated with your installation at any time:
- Open Curious Reader Parents, go to Settings, and find your Device ID.
- Email that Device ID to privacy@curiouslearning.org with the subject line “Delete my data”.
- We will confirm by email once your data has been deleted, typically within 30 days.
If you are taking part in a research study, you can also ask us to delete your mobile number and the link to your survey response; please mention the study in your email. Withdrawing from the study itself is handled by the research team under the study’s consent procedure.
Uninstalling the app removes everything stored on your phone immediately, but does not by itself delete the usage record on our servers; please use the steps above for that. Campaign-measurement data is not tied to an identifier we can look up, because those platforms only ever receive aggregate, non-identified milestone counts.
Changes to this policy
We will post any changes on this page. Material changes to how study data is handled will also be communicated through the study’s research team.
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