Privacy

The short version: no ads, no tracking, no data sold. We only keep what your account needs to work, and you can delete it at any time.

Who is responsible

The data controller is Jérôme Butel EI, trading as “French with Jérôme”, 89 rue du Pensionnat, 69003 Lyon, France. To reach me about your data: friendlyfrenchteacher@gmail.com.

Without an account

You can listen to stories 1 and 2 and use every tool without giving us anything. Your listening position and your display settings are kept in your own browser (local storage). They never leave your device.

With a free account

When you create an account, we store:

• your first name and e-mail address;
• your password, in a scrambled form that nobody can read back (not even us);
• the words you save, your listening progress and your quiz scores;
• the comments you post under blog articles, shown publicly with your first name until you delete them;
• how much time you spend studying each day (listening to stories, reviewing your words, dictations, course lessons), to show you your week; Jérôme sees it too, to follow your progress;
• your preferences (default speed, translation, appearance, weekly e-mail);
• the devices you are signed in on (browser name and last visit), so you can sign them out;
• for live lessons, if you ask to be told when they open: your optional answers to the short questionnaire (level, goals, lesson length, preferred times and time zone, how often, your message). Only Jérôme sees them, and they are deleted when you leave the list;
• for the courses: the lessons you complete, whether your exercise answers were right (to show your progress and help Jérôme improve the lessons), and the courses you have access to or asked to be told about;
• your messages with Jérôme in Messages, if you have lessons with him;
• your dictations: what you wrote and your corrections;
• your My France points and stickers;
• the notifications shown in your bell;
• a history of your account (sign-ups, sign-ins, password and settings changes, with the type of device but never your IP address) and the list of e-mails we sent you (subject and date, not the content).

We use your e-mail address for your account (confirmation, password, change of address) and for what you buy or book (confirmations, reminders, invoices, notes after a lesson). In your first week, you also get 3 short e-mails to help you start: one click stops them. The Sunday letter only comes if you switch it on, and one click stops it too. After your second lesson, one e-mail asks for a review. We never sell or share your address, and there is no advertising.

When you ask for help

If you write to Jérôme about a problem with your account, he can look at the information above to understand what happened (for example, whether the confirmation e-mail was sent) and can send you a new link. He never sees your password and can’t sign in as you. He may keep a short note about your request; it is part of your data, so you receive it if you ask for your data.

Course videos

The videos in the courses are hosted by Vimeo and played in Vimeo’s player, with its “do not track” option on. Vimeo receives your IP address and browser information when you play a video. See Vimeo’s privacy policy.

Buying a course

Course payments are handled by Stripe, through its Link service, which acts as the merchant of record: Stripe collects the payment, the taxes of your country and your billing details (name, e-mail, country, card), under Stripe’s privacy policy. We never see your card details. Stripe only tells us what we need to open your course: the amount, the date, your country and a transaction reference. We keep a record of each purchase (course, amount, date, the version of the terms you accepted and your request for immediate access) for 10 years, as French accounting and consumer law require; if you delete your account, this record is kept without your name or e-mail. See the terms of sale.

Booking a live lesson

When you book a live lesson, we keep the booking (lesson, time, your time zone, price, the version of the terms you accepted, your request to have the lesson within your withdrawal period, reminders and cancellations) for 10 years, as accounting and consumer law require. Payment is handled by Stripe, as a payment provider; we never see your card details. Lessons take place on Google Meet, under Google’s privacy policy, and are not recorded. To know when Jérôme is busy, the site reads his own calendar, never yours; when you request a lesson, your first name is written on that time in his Google Calendar.

Each paid lesson, pack or gift card gets an invoice, made with Abby (abby.fr), the French invoicing service Jérôme uses. When you pay, Stripe asks for your full name and billing address: they are kept with the order and sent to Abby, with your e-mail address and what you bought (date, length, price), to make the invoice, which the site then e-mails to you. Invoices are kept for 10 years, as French law requires. After a lesson, Jérôme’s notes and the lesson’s words stay in your account (Live lessons and My words) until you delete it.

For a pack of lessons or a gift card, we keep the record of the order and of what happened to it, so that we can show, if needed, that it was paid, sent and used as it should: the buyer’s first name and e-mail address, the version of the terms they accepted, the payment reference, the recipient’s first name, e-mail address and message, the e-mails sent about it (address, subject, sent or not), when the card was viewed on the site, the account it was added to (first name and e-mail address at that moment), refused attempts to add it to another account, the confirmation links sent to the card’s address when another account asks for it (which account, when), and the lessons booked with it. This record is kept for 10 years, as French consumer and accounting law require, even if one of the accounts is deleted, and is only used to answer a question or a complaint about that order. We don’t record IP addresses for this.

Inviting a friend

When a friend accepts your invitation to live lessons, we keep who invited whom, and when, with the first names and e-mail addresses of both of you at that moment, the rules of the invitation, the discounts given and what happened to them (each step is written in a record that is never changed). Your friend sees your first name. You see your friend’s first name and where they are (signed up, lessons started, reward), never what they buy or how much they pay. To stop people from inviting themselves, the site compares the card your friend pays with to the cards you’ve paid with, using a fingerprint that Stripe gives us: it isn’t a card number and can’t be used to pay, and we only keep the result (same card or not, with the card type and its last four digits). This record is kept as long as the invitation has an effect, then 10 years with the sales records, even if one of the accounts is deleted, and is only used to apply the discounts and to check them.

Reviews

After your second lesson, or once you’ve done most of a course, you get one e-mail asking for a review. If you write one, it is shown on the site with your first name, the place you chose to add (if any), its date and the month of your lessons, marked “Verified student”: the site checks that you had a lesson or did lessons of the course before you can write it. You can change or delete it at any time; it disappears with your account.

Writing to me

When you use the contact form, your first name, e-mail address and message are sent to my mailbox, with the page you wrote from. The site doesn’t keep them. I keep our e-mails as long as needed to answer you and follow up.

Waiting lists

If you ask to be told when a course or live lessons open, you get one e-mail when they do, and nothing else about it.

Cookies

One cookie keeps you signed in. It is strictly necessary for the account to work, so it does not need your consent. A second one holds your device’s time zone (for example “Europe/Paris”), so that dates are written in your time. A third one remembers the language you chose for the site (English, French, Spanish or Chinese). Two more remember that you closed something, so that it doesn’t come back: the Patreon banner on the Stories page (30 days) and an announcement at the top of the site (6 months). There are no advertising or analytics cookies.

Where the data lives

The site and its database are hosted by o2switch, in France. The fonts are served by the site itself: no third party sees your visit.

Visit statistics

To know which pages are read, we count page views ourselves, without cookies and without any outside service (no Google Analytics). We record the page address, the site you came from and the type of device. To count visitors, we keep a scrambled code made from your IP address, your browser and a random value that changes every day and is then deleted: it can’t be used to recognise you from one day to the next, or to find your IP address. If your browser asks not to be tracked (Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control), nothing is counted. These statistics are deleted after 13 months.

Why we use your data

Each use of your data rests on a legal basis (GDPR, article 6):

• your account, your purchases, your lessons, your invitations and the e-mails that go with them: the contract between us;
• comparing cards when a friend you invited reaches a reward: our legitimate interest in preventing abuse;
• invoices and the records of orders, kept 10 years: French accounting and consumer law;
• the welcome e-mails, the review request, the security history of your account and the visit statistics without cookies: our legitimate interest, which you can object to at any time;
• the Sunday letter and the waiting lists: your consent, which you can withdraw in one click.

Outside the European Union

Some of the services we use are run by American companies: Stripe (payments), Google (Google Meet for the lessons, and Jérôme’s calendar) and Vimeo (course videos). Your data may therefore be sent to the United States; these companies are certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and also use the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses. Everything else stays in France: the site and its database (o2switch) and the invoices (Abby).

How long we keep it

As long as your account exists. The history of your account is kept 12 months, the list of e-mails sent 90 days. Accounts that are never confirmed are deleted after 7 days.

Your rights

You can see and change your name and e-mail address, change your password, download all your data and delete your account and all its data at any time, from the Account page. Under the GDPR, you can also ask to access or correct your data, or object to how it is used. If you think your data is not handled properly, you can complain to the CNIL, the French data protection authority (www.cnil.fr).

For any question about your data, write to friendlyfrenchteacher@gmail.com.

Last updated: October 2026.