Privacy Policy
Last updated: 5 November 2026
This policy explains what CatLingo does with your data. It is published by Hugo Software.
The short version: CatLingo collects no data at all. There are no accounts, no advertising, no analytics and no tracking of any kind. Your cat's sound is analysed on your phone and is never recorded, stored or uploaded.
No accounts, no personal data
The app never asks for your name, email address, phone number or any other identifier. There is no sign-up and no login. We hold no user records, because there are none to hold.
The microphone
If you allow it, the app uses your microphone only while you are on the listening screen or playing the speaking game, and only while the app is on screen.
When you take a reading, the app waits up to 20 seconds for a sound, then measures it for 3 to 6 seconds. The sound is analysed in memory, on your device. The app measures seven things about it — length, base frequency, whether the pitch rises or falls, noisiness, brightness, loudness and syllable count — and compares those numbers to twelve built-in intent profiles.
In the speaking game, the app listens to you for a few seconds and uses only the length and pitch of your syllables to play cat sounds back. Nothing from the game is saved.
When the measurement ends, the sound is discarded. It is:
- not written to a file,
- not kept in the app,
- not sent to us or to anyone else.
There is no recording feature in CatLingo. Only the result — the intent name, the percentage, the time and the measured numbers — is saved, and only on your device.
The microphone is optional. If you decline the permission the app still works: the built-in sample sounds are generated on the phone and run through the same engine.
Stored on your device
The following is kept in the app's local storage on your phone, and nowhere else:
- your reading history (intent name, percentage, timestamp, the measured numbers, and whether it came from a sample sound),
- your own lines, if you write any,
- your cat profiles (a name and one of the illustrated avatars — no photos),
- your settings (measurement length, sensitivity, appearance, language),
- the small adjustment the app learns from your "Was that right?" answers,
- a per-day count of how many free readings you have used,
- your subscription status as reported by Google Play.
From version 1.1.0 this data is excluded from Android backup and device transfer, so it stays on this phone.
Me → Delete data erases all of it immediately. Uninstalling the app does the same.
Sharing
If you share a result or a weekly card, the app makes the text or image on your phone and hands it to the app you choose. It contains no audio. Nothing is sent to us. It may show the name you gave your cat.
What leaves your phone
Two things reach the network, and neither one carries any information about you, your cat or your readings:
Google Play Billing. Buying, restoring or checking the subscription goes through the Google Play Store app on your device. Google receives the purchase data under its own privacy policy. We never see or store your card or payment details — only aggregate, anonymised sales reporting from Google.
One anonymous configuration request to our own server at
hq.bnj.app. It is a plain read: the app asks for a small settings file and sends no identifier of any kind — no advertising ID, no device ID, no identifier we generate ourselves, no readings, no cat names, no audio. The file it receives back can turn sales off, and contains free-tier limits, an optional announcement and a minimum supported version. If the request fails, nothing changes.
The analysis itself needs no network at all. CatLingo measures sounds in airplane mode.
No advertising, no analytics, no tracking
The app contains no advertising SDK, no ad network, no advertising identifier, no analytics SDK and no crash-reporting SDK. Nothing tracks you across other apps or websites. We have no data to sell or share, and we do not.
Permissions
- Microphone (
RECORD_AUDIO,MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS) — to measure a sound live and for the speaking game. Nothing is recorded. - Internet (
INTERNET) — for Google Play Billing and the anonymous configuration request above. - Network state (
ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE) — added by the Google Play Billing library it ships with, to check for a connection. CatLingo itself does not use it. - Vibration (
VIBRATE) — for haptic feedback when you tap. - Billing (
com.android.vending.BILLING) — required by Google Play for the subscription.
Children
CatLingo is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect data from them. It collects no data from anyone, of any age.
Your rights
Because we collect and store no personal data, there is no personal data of yours for us to access, correct, export or delete. See the Data Removal page for details.
Changes
If this policy changes, the updated version will be published on this page with a new date.