Bornomala, published by BALA School (Bengali American Liberal Arts
Foundation), a nonprofit Bengali-language school.
Last updated: 31 August 2026
Bornomala collects no personal information at all. There are no accounts, no sign-ups, no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking of any kind. The app makes no network connections. It works completely offline, and there is no server for your child's information to be sent to, because we do not operate one.
The app saves your child's learning progress on the device only: the profile name you type, stars earned, letters and words practiced, reading streaks, and your settings such as sound on or off. This is kept using Apple's on-device storage and is never transmitted anywhere. Deleting the app removes all of it.
Bornomala has one activity where a child may record themselves saying a Bengali word, so they can play it back and compare it with the app's voice. This is optional and is never required to use the app.
The app can also check whether a spoken word matches the target word. This uses
Apple's speech recognition with requiresOnDeviceRecognition set to
true, which means the audio is processed entirely on the device
and is not sent to Apple's servers or anywhere else. If a device cannot do
on-device recognition, the feature is simply unavailable rather than falling back
to a network service.
Bornomala is made for children. Because it collects no personal information from anyone, including children under 13, it complies with the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and Apple's Kids Category requirements.
The app contains no behavioral advertising, no in-app purchases, and no third-party software development kits of any kind.
The app contains two links to the web: our school's website and an enrollment form. Both sit behind a parental gate, a simple multiplication question a young child cannot pass, as the Kids Category requires. Nothing is submitted from inside the app; those pages open in the device's browser and are governed by their own privacy practices.
None, because we hold none. We have no way to identify a user, no records of who has installed the app, and nothing to look up, export, or erase. Everything your child creates stays on your device and is under your control.
If this policy changes we will update this page and the date at the top. Since the app collects nothing, any change is likely to be a clarification rather than a new use of information.
Questions about this policy, or about the app, can go to BALA School at balaschool.org.