App Privacy Policy

The short version: the app asks for your microphone so you can answer out loud, and everything it hears is processed on your device and never uploaded. The app never reads your device’s location. If you use the Officials Quiz you type in your address, and that address is sent to the U.S. Census Bureau’s public address service to work out which congressional district you are in. We do not run analytics, we do not track you across other apps, and we do not sell anything to anybody.

This policy covers the CivicsGuide mobile app for iOS and Android. The separate website privacy policy covers civicsguide.com.

The app has not launched yet. This policy describes how the app is built and will behave at release. If anything changes before launch, this page changes with it.

Who we are

CivicsGuide is operated by First Bravo LLC, doing business as ConfirmDev. You can reach us about anything on this page at [email protected].

We are an independent study aid. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by USCIS or any U.S. government agency, and we publish study material rather than legal advice.

What stays on your device

These never reach us.

Your voice. The app asks for microphone access so you can answer practice questions out loud, which is how the real civics test works. Audio is processed on your device. No recording is uploaded, stored on our servers, or sent to any third party.

Your spoken answers as text. Speech recognition runs on your device to turn what you said into text so the app can check it. That transcription happens locally and the text is not transmitted.

Which district you live in. The Officials Quiz asks who represents you, and the answer depends on where you live. Working that out takes one lookup, described under “Your address” below. The result of that lookup, your state and your congressional district, is saved on your device. We never receive it, and it is not attached to any account.

Your study progress, your scores and which questions you keep missing are also stored on your device.

What leaves your device

Less than most apps, and we would rather say exactly what.

Your address, if you use the Officials Quiz. Four of the civics questions depend on where you live. To answer them for you, the app asks you to type in your street, city, state and ZIP code, and sends what you typed to the U.S. Census Bureau’s public geocoder at geocoding.geo.census.gov, which is the service that turns an address into a congressional district. The address goes to the Census Bureau, not to us: we never see it and we never store it. The app does not ask for your device’s location and cannot read it. Skip the Officials Quiz and nothing is sent.

Problem reports, if you send one. If you report a problem from inside the app, we receive exactly what you put in the report: your description of what went wrong, any screenshots or screen recordings you chose to attach, the display name you entered, your device model, the version of the app, and a random id that identifies your installation of the app so we can tell one person’s reports apart from another’s. That id is not linked to your name or your email. Nothing is sent unless you fill the form in and send it.

Content requests. The app downloads question lists, lessons and other study content from our servers. Those requests carry the usual technical information any web request carries, including your IP address, which we do not use to build a profile of you.

Account details, if you create an account. Signing in is optional. If you do sign in, we store the email address associated with your account so your progress can follow you between devices.

Subscription status, if you subscribe. Payments are handled entirely by Apple or Google. We never see your card number, your billing address or your full name. Our payments provider tells us only whether your subscription is active.

What we do not do

Worth stating plainly, because many apps in this category do the opposite.

We do not run advertising or share anything with advertising networks.

We do not track you across other apps or websites, and the app does not ask for permission to do so.

We do not sell, rent or trade your information to anybody.

We do not ask for your immigration status, your A-number, your Form N-400, or any document relating to your case. The app has no reason to hold any of that and does not request it.

We do not upload your voice or your practice answers.

We do not ask for access to your device’s location, and the app cannot read it. The only thing the app sends about where you live is the address you type into the Officials Quiz, and that goes to the Census Bureau’s lookup service rather than to us.

Permissions the app asks for

Every permission is optional and the app works without each of them, with the relevant feature switched off.

• Microphone. For answering questions out loud. Decline it and you can still study by tapping answers.
• Speech recognition. For checking spoken answers on-device.
• Notifications. For study reminders, if you turn them on.
• Photos and camera. Only if you choose to attach something yourself: an image inside a document viewer, or a screenshot or screen recording on a problem report. The app never opens these on its own.

You can withdraw any of these at any time in your device settings.

Children

The app is intended for adults preparing for naturalization. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with information, write to us and we will delete it.

Keeping and deleting your information

If you never create an account, the only thing we hold is any problem report you chose to send us. Write to us and we will delete that too.

If you do create one, you can ask us to delete it and everything attached to it by writing to [email protected]. We will delete it and confirm when it is done.

Deleting the app from your device removes the study data stored on it.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, and to object to how we use it. Residents of California, the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom have these rights under their own laws.

Ask us at [email protected] and we will answer. We will not charge you for asking and we will not treat you differently for having asked.

Changes to this policy

If we change what the app collects, we will update this page and change the date at the top. Material changes will be announced in the app itself rather than only here.

Contact

Write to [email protected] for anything on this page, including a request to see or delete what we hold.