Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 25, 2026 Effective date: June 25, 2026

Stophobias, Inc. ("the Company") complies with the Personal Information Protection Act and other applicable laws of the Republic of Korea to protect the freedom and rights of users of the Ringuage service, and processes and manages personal information lawfully and securely. The Company discloses this Privacy Policy as follows so that users can easily understand how their personal information is collected, used, stored, and destroyed.

Key Privacy Disclosures

1. Purposes of Processing Personal Information

The Company processes personal information for the following purposes. Personal information being processed is not used for purposes other than those below, and if the purpose of use changes, the Company will take necessary measures such as obtaining separate consent.

1. Membership registration and account management The Company processes personal information to identify members, verify identity, confirm intent to register, create and manage accounts, prevent misuse, and deliver notices. In addition to email/password sign-up, the Company provides Google, Apple, Kakao, and Naver social login, in which case account identifiers are received from the relevant provider.

2. Providing the Ringuage service The Company processes personal information to provide AI phone lessons, curriculum, lesson delivery, lesson record storage, review features, learning results, and customer support.

3. Providing personalized learning The Company analyzes the user's level, progress, speech content, error types, quiz results, and repeated-learning history to provide individualized learning paths, lesson difficulty, review content, and feedback.

4. AI phone lesson operation and quality management The Company processes voice, conversation content, recordings, transcripts, AI responses, lesson summaries, and error logs generated during AI calls to deliver real-time lessons, check call quality, and improve lesson errors.

5. AI model and service improvement Where the user has separately consented, or within the scope permitted by the Personal Information Protection Act after safeguards such as pseudonymization, the Company may use conversation content, transcripts, learning data, AI response results, and usage patterns to improve AI lesson quality, increase feedback accuracy, advance the curriculum, and improve error detection and safety.

6. Notifications and customer support The Company processes personal information to deliver lesson reservation alerts, call reminders, service change notices, inquiry handling, incident response, and announcements.

7. Service stability and security management The Company processes personal information to detect abnormal use, prevent account theft, analyze errors, respond to service incidents, manage security logs, and handle disputes.

8. Payment and subscription management When a paid subscription or pass is purchased, the Company processes the information necessary for payment approval, payment history verification, refunds, settlement, and fraudulent-payment prevention. The Company processes payments through Apple App Store and Google Play in-app purchases; payment-method information such as card numbers is handled by Apple and Google and is not stored directly on the Company's servers.

2. Personal Information Items Processed

The Company collects the minimum personal information necessary to provide the service.

The Company does not intentionally collect sensitive information such as race, religion, political views, or health information. However, if a user directly includes sensitive information in an AI call, prompt, or inquiry, such content may be included in conversation content, recordings, or transcripts, so please refrain from entering sensitive information. If the Company identifies sensitive information unnecessary for service operation, it will take necessary measures such as deletion, masking, or separate storage.

The Company does not use a user's voice as biometric information for speaker authentication or personal identification. If voice-based identity verification or other biometric features are introduced in the future, the Company will provide separate notice and obtain consent.

3. AI Phone Lessons and Generative AI Processing

Ringuage is a service in which a generative AI conducts foreign-language lessons by conversing with the user as if on a phone call. Based on the user's speech, learning level, and lesson progress, the AI may generate questions, explanations, corrections, reviews, and the content of the next lesson.

The intended use cases of the generative AI features provided by the Company are as follows.

1. Conducting foreign-language conversation lessons
2. Providing grammar, expression, pronunciation, and vocabulary feedback on the user's speech
3. Generating curriculum and review content according to the user's level and progress
4. Providing lesson summaries, weakness analysis, and next-learning recommendations
5. Improving service quality, safety, and errors

Ringuage's AI features are not provided for the purpose of decisions that significantly affect the user's rights or obligations, such as in medicine, law, finance, hiring, or credit evaluation.

Conversation content, recordings, transcripts, AI responses, and lesson summaries generated during AI phone lessons are processed as follows.

The Company may use users' conversation content, recordings, transcripts, and learning data to improve or retrain AI model performance. However, where data in a form that can directly identify an individual is used for AI model training, the Company obtains the user's separate consent. Users may decline consent to the use of their data for AI model training; basic service use remains available without consent, although certain personalization or quality-improvement participation features may be limited.

Users may withdraw or refuse consent to the use of their data for AI model training at any time via the app settings or support@stophobias.com. After receiving a withdrawal request, the Company will take measures to ensure that the user's personal information is not used in new AI model training. Information already reflected in a trained model may be difficult to separate or delete immediately due to technical characteristics, but the Company will, to the extent possible, consider reasonable measures such as machine unlearning, dataset exclusion, and exclusion upon retraining.

4. Processing and Retention Periods of Personal Information

The Company destroys personal information without delay when the purpose of processing has been achieved or the user requests account withdrawal. However, where retention is required under applicable laws, the information is stored separately for the relevant period.

Examples of retention required by applicable law are as follows.

5. Procedures and Methods for Destroying Personal Information

The Company destroys personal information without delay once the retention period has elapsed or the processing purpose has been achieved.

1. Destruction procedure The Company selects the personal information for which a ground for destruction has arisen and destroys it upon approval of the Privacy Officer or in accordance with internal procedures.

2. Destruction method Personal information in electronic file form is deleted using a method that prevents recovery or reproduction. Personal information printed on paper is shredded or incinerated. Large files such as recordings and transcripts are deleted in an unrecoverable manner after the retention period ends, with access permissions restricted.

6. Provision of Personal Information to Third Parties

The Company processes users' personal information only within the scope specified in the processing purposes, and does not provide it to third parties except as permitted by the Personal Information Protection Act, such as with the user's consent or under special provisions of law.

Currently, the Company does not provide users' personal information to third parties, except for the entrustment described in Article 7.

If the Company provides personal information to third parties in the future, it will give prior notice of the recipient, purpose of provision, items provided, and retention and use period, and will obtain separate consent where necessary.

7. Entrustment of Personal Information Processing

To provide the service smoothly, the Company entrusts part of its personal information processing to external providers. When entering into entrustment agreements, the Company reflects in the contract the matters necessary for personal information protection—such as prohibition of processing beyond the entrusted purpose, security measures, restrictions on re-entrustment, management and supervision, and liability for damages—and manages and supervises the trustees.

When external generative AI services or voice processing services are used, the user's input, call transcripts, and AI response results may be processed through the relevant trustee. The Company restricts, through contract or settings, trustees from using received data for their own AI model training without authorization. If a trustee uses user data for its own model training, the Company will clearly notify users in advance and obtain the necessary consent.

If a trustee or entrusted work changes, the Company will disclose it through this Privacy Policy or announcements.

8. Overseas Transfer of Personal Information

The Company's servers, databases, and file storage (AWS) are located domestically (Seoul region), so core personal information such as call recordings, transcripts, and learning data is stored in Korea. However, the Company uses services provided by overseas operators for real-time AI processing, analytics, notifications, login, and payment verification, in which case some personal information may be transferred overseas.

Users may refuse the overseas transfer of their personal information. However, where overseas transfer is essential to providing the service, refusal may limit the use of certain services such as AI phone lessons, speech recognition, review, and website use. To refuse overseas transfer or for inquiries, please contact support@stophobias.com.

9. Criteria for Additional Use and Provision

The Company may additionally use or provide personal information without the user's consent within a scope reasonably related to the original collection purpose. In doing so, the Company comprehensively considers the following.

1. Whether there is relevance to the original collection purpose
2. Whether additional use/provision can be anticipated in light of the circumstances of collection or processing practices
3. Whether it unfairly infringes on the user's interests
4. Whether measures necessary for security, such as pseudonymization or encryption, have been taken

If additional use/provision occurs on an ongoing basis, the Company will disclose the relevant criteria through this Privacy Policy.

10. Processing of Pseudonymized Information

The Company may pseudonymize and use personal information for the purposes of AI lesson quality improvement, error analysis, service advancement, statistical analysis, and research.

When processing pseudonymized information, the Company stores additional information separately, restricts access permissions, and does not re-identify any specific individual. If pseudonymized information is provided to a third party, the Company will disclose the recipient, purpose of provision, items provided, and retention period.

11. Automated Decisions

Ringuage may use AI to analyze the user's learning level, progress, speech content, error types, and usage patterns, and to automatically recommend or generate the next lesson difficulty, review items, curriculum, and feedback.

The Company does not currently make automated decisions that significantly affect users' rights or obligations. However, users may request an explanation of AI-generated learning recommendations, level analysis, feedback, and the like, or request correction of errors or re-review.

How to request: the in-app inquiry feature or support@stophobias.com Upon receiving a request, the Company provides the necessary explanation, correction, reprocessing, or human review unless there is a justifiable reason not to.

12. Rights of Data Subjects and Legal Representatives, and How to Exercise Them

Users may exercise the following rights against the Company at any time.

1. Request to access personal information
2. Request to correct errors
3. Request for deletion
4. Request to suspend processing
5. Withdrawal of consent
6. Refusal of use for AI model training
7. Request to delete call recordings, transcripts, and learning data
8. Request for an explanation and review of automated decisions
9. The right to receive personal information in a portable format

Rights may be exercised through the in-app settings, the customer support feature, or support@stophobias.com. The Company acts without delay after verifying that the requester is the data subject or a duly authorized representative.

For children under the age of 14, the legal representative may exercise the rights to access, correct/delete, suspend processing, and withdraw consent. Minors aged 14 or older may exercise their rights directly or through a legal representative.

13. Processing of Personal Information of Children Under 14

As a rule, the Company does not provide services targeting children under the age of 14. If it must process the personal information of a child under 14, it obtains the consent of the legal representative.

If the Company confirms that the personal information of a child under 14 was collected without the legal representative's consent, it will delete the information or take necessary measures without delay.

14. Installation, Operation, and Refusal of Automatic Collection Devices

The Company may use automatic collection devices such as cookies, SDKs, and local storage to maintain login, save preferences, analyze service use, and improve errors.

Users may refuse or delete cookie storage through browser settings or mobile device settings. However, blocking essential cookies may limit the use of certain services such as login.

If the Company collects behavioral information through a third party or uses it for personalized advertising, it will separately disclose the collecting entity, items collected, purpose of use, retention period, and how to opt out.

15. Measures to Ensure the Security of Personal Information

The Company implements the following measures to ensure the security of personal information.

1. Administrative measures Establishing an internal management plan for personal information processing, managing access permissions, managing and supervising trustees, training personnel who handle personal information, and conducting regular inspections

2. Technical measures Encryption of personal information, encryption of transmission segments, access control, retention and review of access logs, malware prevention, vulnerability checks, and abnormal-access detection

3. Physical measures Restricting access to systems storing personal information and restricting access permissions to the cloud management console

4. AI and call data protection measures Minimizing access permissions to call recordings and transcripts, separating identifiers, de-identification or pseudonymization before use for AI training, restricting trustees' model training, managing data retention periods, and operating procedures for handling deletion requests

16. Privacy Officer and Grievance Handling Department

The Company designates the following Privacy Officer and responsible department to oversee personal information processing and to handle privacy-related inquiries, complaints, and remedies.

Privacy Officer Name: Jeongwon Lee Title: CEO Email: support@stophobias.com

Privacy Grievance Handling Department Department: Ringuage Customer Support Team Email: support@stophobias.com

17. Remedies for Infringement of Rights

To obtain remedies for infringement of personal information, users may apply for consultation or dispute resolution to the following organizations.

1. Personal Information Infringement Report Center: 118 (no area code)
2. Personal Information Dispute Mediation Committee: 1833-6972
3. Supreme Prosecutors' Office Cyber Investigation Division: 1301 (no area code)
4. National Police Agency Cyber Investigation Bureau: 182 (no area code)

18. Designation of a Domestic Representative

As a business located in the Republic of Korea, the Company is not subject to the requirement to designate a domestic representative under the Personal Information Protection Act. If the relevant requirements apply in the future, the Company will designate a domestic representative and disclose it in this Policy.

19. Operation of Visual Data Processing Devices

The Company does not currently operate fixed or mobile visual data processing devices to provide the Ringuage service. If it operates such devices in the future, it will separately disclose the installation purpose, filming scope, retention period, and responsible manager.

20. Changes to This Privacy Policy

If the Company changes this Privacy Policy, it will disclose the changes and their effective date through the website or in-app announcements.

For changes that significantly affect users' rights—such as the items of personal information processed, processing purposes, retention periods, use for AI training, third-party provision, and overseas transfer—the Company will separately notify the key changes before or immediately upon the change.

Matters that change frequently and have a minor impact on users' rights, such as the list of trustees or sub-trustees, may be announced together at reasonable intervals.

Previous versions of this Privacy Policy are retained and disclosed together with their applicable periods.

21. Company Information

Company: Stophobias, Inc. CEO: Jeongwon Lee Business registration number: 629-88-03811 Address: 7F, Unit 10, 27 Euncheon-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea Contact: support@stophobias.com