Privacy policy

The short version

The worksheets you build never leave your device. You do not need an account to use the tools, we do not ask for your name or email unless you contact us, and we do not sell personal information. This site is funded by advertising and by voluntary contributions, and both of those involve a small amount of data processing, which is explained in full below.

1. Who we are

This site is operated by Hanzi Studio ("we", "us"), an independent publisher of Chinese-language learning materials. For anything in this policy, including requests about your personal information, contact hanzipracticestudio@gmail.com. Where the GDPR or UK GDPR applies, we are the controller of the personal data described here.

2. What we do not collect

The characters you type into the worksheet generator, your grid and layout settings, and the pages you print are processed entirely in your browser. They are never uploaded to us, never stored on our servers and never used to build a profile of you. The printable workbooks and worksheets contain no tracking pixels, no embedded tracking links and no analytics of any kind.

3. Information you give us

We only receive personal information from you in the following situations:

• Newsletter — if you subscribe, we store the email address you enter and the date of consent, so that we can send you the requested material and occasional practice sets.
• Support email — if you write to us, we keep your email address and the content of the message so that we can reply and remember the history of the request.
• Contributions — if you make a voluntary contribution, our payment provider tells us your email address, the amount, the date and an order reference, so that we can deliver the thank-you gift and provide support. We never see or store your card or bank details.

4. Information collected automatically

Like virtually every website, our hosting servers and content delivery network record standard technical data when a page is requested. This typically includes your IP address, the date and time, the page requested, the referring page, your browser and operating system type, and a coarse (country or region level) location derived from the IP address. We use this data to deliver pages, to keep the site secure and available, to diagnose faults and to produce aggregate statistics about traffic. This data is not used to identify you personally and is not sold.

5. Cookies and similar technologies

Cookies are small text files placed on your device. We also use browser local storage, which works in a similar way but stays entirely on your device. The categories we use are:

• Strictly necessary — required for the site to work and to keep it secure, for example remembering that you have answered the consent notice, or protection against abuse. These cannot be switched off.
• Preferences — the worksheet generator stores your last-used settings (characters, grid type, layout options) in your browser's local storage. This never leaves your device and is deleted when you clear your browser data.
• Analytics — aggregated, privacy-respecting measurement of which pages are useful. Where the law requires it, analytics cookies are only set after you consent.
• Advertising — cookies set by us or by third-party advertising partners to display ads, measure their performance and limit how often you see the same ad. These are only set after you consent where consent is required.

You can block or delete cookies and clear local storage at any time in your browser settings. Blocking cookies may affect how ads and analytics behave, but it will not stop the worksheet generator or the stroke-order tool from working.

6. Advertising and third-party vendors

This site displays advertising to keep the tools free. Advertisements are served by third-party advertising networks, including Google AdSense and its partners.

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website and to other websites.
• Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and/or other sites on the internet.
• You can opt out of personalised advertising from Google by visiting Google Ads Settings. You can also opt out of personalised advertising from many other vendors at aboutads.info and, in Europe, at youronlinechoices.eu.
• Visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are shown a consent notice from a certified consent management platform before any non-essential cookie is set. You can change or withdraw your choice at any time from that notice or by clearing the site's cookie data.
• Some advertising partners may process data as independent controllers or as joint controllers; their own privacy policies and their vendor disclosures apply to that processing.
• We do not allow advertising partners to place ads that we know to be deceptive, and advertising slots are always labelled "Advertisement". We do not receive your personal information from advertising partners, and we do not use advertising data to identify you.

7. Analytics

Where analytics is enabled, it is used only to understand which pages and features are useful, and it is configured to avoid identifying individuals: reporting is aggregated, IP addresses are not stored by us in identifiable form, and no cross-site tracking profile of you is built by us. Analytics is only activated after consent where the law requires it.

8. Contributions and email

Contributions are processed by a third-party payment provider. That provider collects your payment details and handles the transaction under its own privacy policy. We receive only your email address, the amount, the date and an order reference, which we use to deliver the workbook download link, to answer support questions and to keep accounting records.

If you subscribe to the newsletter, your email address is stored with our email service provider, which processes it on our behalf and may use it for delivery, suppression-list and deliverability purposes. Every message contains a one-click unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing removes you from the list.

9. How long we keep data

Server logs are kept for a short period (typically no more than 30 days) and then deleted or aggregated. Newsletter subscriptions are kept until you unsubscribe. Support correspondence is kept for up to two years so that we can recognise repeat requests. Transaction records (email address, amount, date, order reference) are kept for as long as tax and accounting law requires, which is usually between six and ten years. Consent records are kept for as long as we need to demonstrate that consent was obtained.

10. Security

The site is served over HTTPS. We use reputable hosting, delivery and payment providers, keep the amount of personal data we hold to a minimum, and restrict access to it. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect the data we do hold.

11. International transfers

Our service providers may store or process data in countries other than your own, including the United States. Where personal data is transferred out of the EEA or the UK, the transfer relies on an appropriate safeguard such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or an adequacy decision.

12. Children

These tools are designed for language learners of all ages and are safe for classroom use. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (or under 16 where that is the applicable age of digital consent), and we do not ask for an age or any personal details to use the tools. If you believe a child has provided personal information to us, contact us and we will delete it promptly.

13. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the following rights: to be informed about how your data is used; to access a copy of the personal data we hold about you; to have inaccurate data corrected; to have your data erased; to restrict or object to processing; to data portability; to withdraw consent at any time (without affecting processing carried out before withdrawal); and not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing. To exercise any of these rights, email hanzipracticestudio@gmail.com. We answer requests within 30 days.

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your national data protection authority. If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what categories of personal information are collected, to request deletion or correction, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information: we do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising except through the advertising cookies described above, which you can refuse or disable at any time. We do not discriminate against users who exercise their privacy rights. You may also use an authorised agent to make a request on your behalf.

We honour Global Privacy Control (GPC) opt-out signals where our consent tooling supports them, and we do not attempt to circumvent browser privacy settings or "do not track" preferences.

14. Third-party links

Some pages link to external resources, such as the Make Me a Hanzi project or the Unicode Consortium. Once you follow such a link you are subject to that site's own privacy policy, which we do not control and are not responsible for.

15. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes we will update the date and version number at the top of this page, and we will give reasonable notice of material changes on this page. Continued use of the site after a change means you accept the updated policy.

16. Contact

Questions about privacy, or a request about your personal information? Email hanzipracticestudio@gmail.com and we will respond as quickly as we can, and in any case within the time limits set by applicable law.

See also our Terms of Service & Digital Product Licence, which covers the rules for using the site, the licence you receive with the workbook, and the final-sale policy that applies to digital downloads.