What happens to your data

Your account and study data

Firebase Authentication handles your email/password account, email verification and sign-in sessions. Birne stores your Firebase identity reference, email, access decision and role, together with your personal library, vocabulary, notes, settings and review history. These support your account and learning experience. Other beta users cannot access your personal study data.

Your audio and transcription

Uploads and playback files are stored in private Google Cloud Storage. Playback uses time-limited signed links; keep these links private. When you start transcription, a Google Cloud worker sends audio parts to the external Gemini 3.5 Transcribe service. Birne saves the resulting transcript, timing information and private processing records. Word timestamps are experimental and may need checking against the recording.

Where processing happens

Birne's API, workers, database and private media storage run in the United States, in Google Cloud's us-central1 region. Firebase Hosting and Authentication have their own service locations. The current Gemini Transcribe preview uses Google's global endpoint. The beta does not promise storage or processing only in Germany or only in one region.

Your controls

You can remove lessons and manage your account in the app. Account deletion requires a fresh sign-in and confirmation. Accepted deletion blocks product access and new processing, then removes your Firebase account, personal study records and media through background cleanup. Cleanup may need retries. Minimal de-identified security and spending records are retained; existing backups expire under their retention policy rather than disappearing immediately.

Sessions and service records

The app uses Firebase session storage to keep you signed in. This landing page has no analytics script or advertising tracker and serves its fonts with the page. Google-managed hosting, request and audit records can include network information such as IP addresses and request URLs. Birne's operational logs use bounded service events and aggregates for error, queue and budget monitoring.

Before you upload

Upload only material you are permitted to use and send to an external recognition service. Consider the privacy of people in a recording. AI translation, generated examples and speech generation remain disabled in the cloud beta.

Provider information

• Firebase privacy and security
• Google Cloud privacy
• Gemini 3.5 Transcribe