The short version
- No recordings. Camera frames, depth data, face geometry and microphone audio are processed in the device's memory and discarded. They are never saved or sent anywhere, including to us.
- No biometric templates. ArtiKO does not create face prints, voiceprints or any template that could recognise your child.
- Your records stay with your family. Practice results are stored on the device and, if you use iCloud, in your family's private iCloud database, which we cannot access.
- Research sharing is optional. Two activities can share anonymous numeric measurements, only with a parent's permission (section 5).
- No ads, no tracking, no data sales. ArtiKO contains no advertising and no third-party advertising, analytics or behavioural-tracking SDKs.
- You're in control. You can review, export and delete everything (section 12).
1. Who we are and what this policy covers
ArtiKO is developed by Nihilio Yapay Görme Simülasyon Yazılım San. ve Tic. Ltd. Şti. ("Nihilio Vision", "we", "us"), Kocaeli Üniversitesi Teknopark, Başiskele, Kocaeli, Türkiye. We are the data controller (veri sorumlusu under Türkiye's Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data, "KVKK") for the limited personal data described in this policy.
This policy covers the ArtiKO app for iPhone and iPad and the ArtiKO pages of this website. It is written for parents and legal guardians. Our other apps have their own policies.
2. Children's privacy and parental consent
ArtiKO is designed for children aged 3–7, used with a parent or guardian. We follow the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the EU and UK GDPR rules for children's data (including GDPR Article 8, often called "GDPR-K"), KVKK, and Apple's App Store Review Guidelines for the Kids Category (Guidelines 1.3 and 5.1).
- A parent or guardian installs ArtiKO, creates the child's profile and decides whether to allow the optional research sharing in section 5. Children are not asked to provide personal information.
- We don't ask for, and ArtiKO doesn't need, a child's full name, email address, phone number, photo, home address or precise location.
- The parent area, links that leave the app and purchases are intended for adults and sit behind a parental gate.
- We collect only what each activity needs to work and to show progress, and never make a child's participation depend on sharing more.
If you believe a child has given us personal information without a parent's consent, contact us at contact@nihiliovision.com and we will delete it.
3. What ArtiKO processes on the device only
ArtiKO asks iOS for permission to use the camera and microphone (and, for one activity, on-device speech recognition). You can change these permissions at any time in iOS Settings. Here is exactly what happens with those signals:
| Signal | What ArtiKO does with it | Saved or sent? |
|---|---|---|
| TrueDepth camera & face tracking | Apple's on-device face tracking analyses each camera frame in memory and reports a small set of movement values describing the lips, jaw, eyes and head position. ArtiKO uses these values in real time to animate characters and respond to the child's movement, then discards the frame. | Never. No video, image, depth map, face mesh or biometric template is written to storage or transmitted. |
| Microphone | Sound is analysed in memory on the device to recognise the speech sounds each activity practises. | No recordings are ever saved or sent. The only exception is the optional numeric research summary described in section 5, which is not an audio recording. |
| Speech recognition (Magic Forest activity) | Apple's speech recognition on the device estimates whether a practice word was said clearly. | Never. Only a pass/try-again result is used. |
The face-movement values are not used to identify your child, and they are not combined into anything that could recognise a face.
4. Progress records on your device and in your private iCloud
To plan each day's practice and show progress, ArtiKO keeps practice records in the app's local storage on the device. If iCloud is turned on for ArtiKO, iOS mirrors them to your family's private iCloud database. That database belongs to your Apple Account and is protected by Apple; Nihilio Vision cannot see or access it.
| Record | Contents |
|---|---|
| Child profile | A random profile identifier, the display name or nickname and age information a parent enters, the current sound ladder level, and personal settings ArtiKO adapts to your child, stored as numbers. |
| Practice attempts | Time, activity, target sound, accuracy score, duration, whether the camera was used, whether the attempt ended early, and the feedback level. |
| Clinical metrics | Practice measurements such as how long a sound was sustained, range and steadiness of movement, pace and response time, each written only by the activity that measures it. |
| Report details | If you enter it, the name of your child's clinician, used on the PDF report. |
Records never contain audio, video, images or face geometry. The PDF report you can export identifies your child only by the first characters of the profile identifier and age in months. It does not include your child's name or date of birth. When you choose to share a report, you decide who receives it and how.
5. Optional anonymous research data
To improve how ArtiKO recognises young children's speech, two activities (EchoGrove and Speech Explorer) can send a small set of anonymous measurements to our research database. This happens only if a parent gives permission in the parent area. You can withdraw that permission at any time, and ArtiKO works fully without it.
| Sent (only with permission) | Never sent |
|---|---|
|
|
Our database rules reject any field not listed above. The research database is hosted for us by Google Cloud (Firebase), acting as our processor under a data processing agreement. We use this data only to research and improve speech-sound detection for children. We never use it for advertising, never sell it, and never try to re-identify a child.
6. Parent sign-in
If ArtiKO asks a parent to sign in, it uses Sign in with Apple. We receive only a stable anonymous user identifier and, if you choose to share them, a name and an email address (which may be Apple's private relay address). We use them only to operate your account and to respond to you. Children never sign in.
You can delete your account from within the app's parent area, or by contacting us. Deleting it deletes the account information we hold. You can also stop using Sign in with Apple for ArtiKO in your Apple Account settings.
7. Purchases
Any in-app purchases or subscriptions are processed by Apple through the App Store. We never receive your payment card details. Apple tells us only what is needed to unlock what you purchased. Apple's handling of purchase data is described in Apple's privacy policy.
8. No advertising, tracking or profiling
ArtiKO contains no advertising of any kind and no third-party advertising, analytics or behavioural-tracking SDKs. It does not use the advertising identifier, does not track your child across apps or websites, does not build marketing profiles, and does not sell or rent any data.
ArtiKO does not make automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects. The app's in-game judgements (for example, whether a "p" sound was clear) only drive the game and practice reports.
10. Security
Our strongest safeguard is not collecting sensitive data in the first place: camera and microphone signals never leave the device. Records on the device are protected by iOS data protection. iCloud data is encrypted by Apple in transit and at rest. The research database is encrypted in transit and at rest, access is limited to authorised researchers, and its rules accept only the anonymous fields listed in section 5. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affecting your data occurs, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.
11. Retention
- Camera, depth and microphone signals: held in memory only for the moment they are analysed (well under a second), then discarded.
- Progress records: kept on your device and in your private iCloud until you delete the child profile, delete the app's data or turn off iCloud for ArtiKO.
- Parent account: kept while your account is active, and deleted within 30 days of an account deletion request.
- Research data: kept only as long as needed for the research purpose and reviewed at least once a year. Data is deleted promptly when permission is withdrawn and we can identify the relevant records (see section 12).
12. Parental rights and how to use them
Wherever you live, you can do the following for your child's data:
Review
Open the parent area in ArtiKO to see your child's sessions, metrics and progress charts. Everything ArtiKO stores is shown there.
Export
Export a PDF progress report from the parent area. You can also email us to request a copy of any data we hold about you or your child (such as parent account information).
Delete
- A child's records: delete the child profile in the parent area. This removes its records from the device and, when iCloud syncs, from your private iCloud.
- Everything on the device: delete the ArtiKO app. To remove the iCloud copy too, go to Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Manage Storage and delete ArtiKO's data.
- Parent account: delete it in the parent area or email us.
- Research data: withdraw permission in the parent area to stop any further sharing. Because research records carry only a random pseudonym, we cannot link them to you by ourselves. Email us and we will work with you to identify and delete them.
Refuse further collection
Turn off research sharing, or remove camera or microphone permission in iOS Settings at any time. Some activities need the camera or microphone to work, but we will never ask a child to share more than an activity needs.
Additional rights
Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to correct data, restrict or object to processing, and receive data in a portable format. Under KVKK Article 11 you may request information about processing, its purpose, recipients, and correction or deletion. Email contact@nihiliovision.com. We will respond within 30 days (or sooner where the law requires) and may need to verify that you are the child's parent or guardian.
13. Legal bases (GDPR and KVKK)
- Providing the app: performance of our agreement with the parent (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b); KVKK Art. 5(2)(c)).
- Optional research data: the parent's consent (GDPR Arts. 6(1)(a) and 8; KVKK Art. 5(1)), which you can withdraw at any time without affecting earlier processing.
- Security and legal obligations: our legitimate interests and legal obligations (GDPR Art. 6(1)(c) and (f); KVKK Art. 5(2)(ç) and (f)).
Because face and voice signals are processed only on the device and never reach us, we do not process biometric data to identify anyone.
14. International transfers
Nihilio Vision is based in Türkiye. The optional research database and Apple's services may process data in other countries. Where data leaves Türkiye, the EU/EEA or the UK, we rely on legally recognised safeguards such as standard contractual clauses and the notification requirements of KVKK Article 9.
15. This website
This website sets no cookies of its own and uses no analytics and no advertising. Fonts and images are served from our own site. The ArtiKO pages contain no third-party content. Two pages about our other products embed YouTube videos in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, and YouTube may store data on your device only if you play a video. Our hosting provider (Google Firebase Hosting) processes standard technical data such as IP addresses in server logs to deliver pages and keep the service secure. If you email us, we use your message only to reply.
16. Changes to this policy
We will update the date above when this policy changes. If a change affects how children's data is collected or used, we will tell parents in the app beforehand and ask for fresh consent where the law requires.
17. Contact and complaints
Nihilio Yapay Görme Simülasyon Yazılım San. ve Tic. Ltd. Şti.
Kocaeli Üniversitesi Teknopark, Başiskele, Kocaeli, Türkiye
Email: contact@nihiliovision.com
If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may complain to the Turkish Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK), your local data protection authority in the EU/EEA or the UK Information Commissioner's Office, or, in the United States, the Federal Trade Commission.