bucoo is made for young children, so we treat their information with extra care. This is a plain-language explanation of what we collect, what we never do, and the choices you have as a parent or guardian. Last updated 23 August 2026.
This policy covers bucoo's website and reading app at bucoo.ai. bucoo is designed for early readers (roughly ages 4–8), and accounts are created and managed by a parent or guardian. Children don't sign up on their own — a parent sets up the profile, gives consent, and stays in control of the settings.
We try to collect as little as possible. In practice that means a parent or guardian's account details (your email and sign-in credentials; if you subscribe, our payment provider handles your card details and we don't store full card numbers); a child profile (a first name or nickname, an avatar, and a rough reading stage or age band so coaching is pitched correctly); reading progress (derived signals such as words read, words that needed help, accuracy and pace over time, points earned, and which books have been read); and basic technical data (device and browser type and app diagnostics) so the app runs reliably.
bucoo's coaching works by watching the page and listening as your child reads aloud, so it needs the camera and microphone. Two promises here. First, they are only enabled after a parent has given verifiable consent, and you can turn them off at any time. Second, we are clear about what leaves the device: to read a page, bucoo sends the page image to its reading service; to follow along as your child reads, most browsers use the browser's own cloud speech recognition to turn speech into text. These power the live coaching only. We keep the derived reading signals (which words were tricky, pace and accuracy) to show progress, captured page images are stored so bucoo can re-open the book, and you can delete captured pages and recordings at any time. Where we can we process on your device, and we're working to do more of it there.
We use this information to run the reading coach and highlight words in time, pitch help at the right grain, show you progress and report cards, run the rewards your child earns, keep accounts secure, and improve how well bucoo teaches — using aggregated, de-identified data wherever we can.
Because a parent or guardian holds the account, you can at any time review what we hold about your child, correct it, export it, or delete your child's profile and data. You can also withdraw consent, which turns off the camera and microphone features and stops further collection. We keep consent records so the choice is auditable. To make any of these requests, just email us at support@bucoo.ai.
We don't share your family's data to make money. We only share in limited, ordinary ways: with the trusted service providers listed below, who are bound by contract to protect it and use it only for bucoo; with a teacher only if you explicitly choose to share a report; and where the law requires it. Our page-reading (OCR) service and reading-coach voices are our own technology, run by us — not a third party. If bucoo is ever involved in a business transfer, we'll tell you, and the same protections will continue to apply.
We host and process your family's information in Australia — our website, app, database, and the service providers we use to run bucoo are all Australian. We don't send your data overseas.
Here's every third-party service provider (subprocessor) that may handle part of your family's information on our behalf, what they do, what they see, and where they're located:
| Provider | What they do for us | What they see | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fly.io fly.io |
Hosts bucoo's website, app, database, and file storage | Everything the app stores — account details, child profiles, reading progress, captured book-page images | Australia |
| Stripe stripe.com |
Processes payments for paid plans | A parent's payment and billing details — we never see or store full card numbers | Australia |
| Resend resend.com |
Delivers our sign-in emails (magic links and one-time codes) | A parent or teacher's email address | Australia |
We use each provider only for the purpose above, and only for as long as needed to provide that part of the service. If we add or change a service provider in a way that affects your data, we'll update this table.
We protect your information with encryption in transit, access controls, and by limiting what each service provider receives to only what it needs to do its job. No system is perfectly secure, but minimising what we hold and who can see it is our first line of defence.
We keep your child's profile and progress for as long as the account is active, so progress isn't lost. Captured book-page images stay in your family's library until you delete them or close the account. When you delete a profile, a book, or close the account, we delete the associated personal data within a reasonable period, except where we must keep limited records to meet a legal obligation.
bucoo is Australian-made and built to meet children's-privacy rules from day one, including the Australian Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), Australia's Children's Online Privacy Code, and the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Where these set different bars, we aim to follow the strictest.
If we make a meaningful change, we'll update the date at the top and, for significant changes affecting your child's data, let account holders know.
If you're worried we've mishandled your family's information, tell us: email support@bucoo.ai with what happened. We'll acknowledge your complaint and look into it, and aim to give you a response within 30 days. If you're not satisfied with how we've handled it, you can take your complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), which is independent of bucoo and free to use.
Questions, or want to access, correct, or delete your child's data? Email us at support@bucoo.ai and we'll help.
Avatar illustrations are generated with DiceBear and self-hosted: the robot set (“Bottts”) and the friendly-face set (“Big Smile”) are dedicated to the public domain (CC0); the illustrated-character set (“Adventurer” by Lisa Wischofsky) is used under CC BY 4.0.
