Privacy Notice

If you or your end users access Read Along via a Google Workspace for Education account this Privacy Notice will not apply and the Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice or other agreement under which Google has agreed to provide Google Workspace for Education will govern your use of Read Along.

This Read Along privacy notice is intended to help parents understand what data is collected by Read Along and how we use it.  This notice provides information about our privacy practices that are specific to Read Along and summarizes the most relevant portions of the Google Privacy Policy.

Read Along can operate either as a signed in or signed out service. When signed in, the user signs in through their Google account, and their history and preferences are saved on the account, so that they can use the service on any device just by logging in. When signed out, the user doesn’t need to use a Google account to sign in, but their history and preferences are saved on the device only.

Signed in service is available to both web and android app users, but signed out service is only available for existing users on the android app.

Information we collect

When you use Read Along, Google collects information based on your children's use, like when they read a book. This information includes:

• log information, including usage statistics on how our service is used, device event information, and the device's Internet protocol (IP) address;
• general location information (such as city or state) based on your device’s IP address; and

When using Read Along as a signed in service:

• Google collects account identifiers from yours or your child’s signed-in session, used to collect and store information such as preferred language, reading history, stories you restrict and other settings.

When using Read Along as a signed out service:

• Google collects a unique identifier based on the device, which is used to collect and store information about an app or device, such as preferred language, reading and search history, and other settings.
• Google also uses various technologies to collect and store app activity as described above, including cookies or similar mechanisms. The information collected through cookies or similar mechanisms is used for the purposes mentioned below and retained for 120 days on our servers on a per-user basis.

Both the signed in and signed out services of Read Along collect voice data. The voice data is processed only on the user’s device and is not shared with Google, to protect users’ privacy. Voice data is not stored at all after processing.

Both the signed in and signed out services of Read Along also let users set up different profiles for their children, and let them select from an array of provided avatars and set a name for their profile.

How we use information we collect

When using Read Along on the app or the web, Google collects the above described information so that your child can continue progressing from session to session. It allows your child to see prior reading history and keep track of in-app rewards your child has earned. Prior reading history is used to recommend books that match your child’s interests and reading level. This information is essential to support your child’s journey over months or years as they build up their reading skills.

When using either the signed in or signed out versions of Read Along, with the exception of sharing to teachers or admins as described below, Google does not allow your children to share personal information with third parties or make it publicly available.

Google also uses the information collected for internal operational purposes such as spam and abuse prevention, enforcing content license restrictions, determining preferred language, analysing usage of the signed-in or signed-out versions of the application, and providing, maintaining and improving the service.

When using the signed-in version of Read Along, Google also offers a mechanism for teachers and admins to create groups to allow multiple children to share with their teacher information on which books they are reading, how well they are doing, and how many minutes they are reading overall, as well as their name within the app. This allows the teacher to guide your child and the other children in the group to practice reading regularly.

When using the signed-out version of Read Along, if you would like to review and/or delete any of the data collected by Read Along that is stored on your device, you can do so by deleting the Read Along app, or using your device operating system’s application data deletion feature.

When using the signed-in version of Read Along, if you would like to delete any of the data collected by Read Along that is stored on the server against your account identifier, you can do so by clicking the “Delete History” button from the app’s left navigation menu. Deleting your entire Google account will also delete this data from the signed in version.

Information we share

Google will not disclose personal information outside of Google unless one of the following circumstances applies:

With consent

Google will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals (such as teachers or Admins) outside of Google when we have parental consent.

For legal reasons

Google will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:

• meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
• enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations.
• detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues.
• protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public as required or permitted by law.

For external processing

Google may provide personal information to our affiliates or other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

Google may share aggregate information about the use of the app with third parties to, for example, show trends about the use of the app or meet our reporting obligations with partners.

Interpretation of conflicting terms

Where there are terms that differ between the Privacy Notice and the Google Privacy Policy, this Privacy Notice controls over the Google Privacy Policy.

Service Provider

The Read Along service is provided by:

Google LLC

1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

Phone: +1 650-253-0000

In the EEA and Switzerland:

Google Ireland Limited

Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4

Republic of Ireland

Contact Us

Parents may contact us directly with any questions or concerns at: readalong@google.com