Appears to violate US child privacy laws
Update August 22, 2021 After I informed LingoAce that they were in violation of US and California privacy laws, and that I had reported them to the FTC, California Attorney General, the press/news outlets, and bloggers, they informed me they had deleted my child's data. I am incredibly relieved and appreciative. Though, I am still waiting for confirmation that all backups have been removed, and that my child's data has been removed from any machine learning/AI/training models. One of the bloggers, and I think I agree, suggested that for those who care about privacy: 1) it might be better to go with companies such as GoEast that use an external meeting service such as Zoom. The learning company doesn't control your child's data and Zoom can focus on the meeting technology and security 2) a company in the EU, such as Vivaling, is required to adhere to stricter privacy requirements === Update August 2021: After LingoAce reached out to us, we were able to sign up. Scheduling classes has been seamless. However, for any parents who care about privacy, there are a few red flags. 1. LingoAce maintains a full video and audio recording of every single lesson. This includes the trial session. 2. Very loose security - it seemed like everybody we spoke with at LingoAce could view our child's data. This included every single salesperson we spoke with, and there were at least 3-4. I asked for the video recordings to be deleted. I could possibly see a business case for keeping the most "recent" videos. But there is no reason at all why LingoAce would need videos of my kid dating back over half a year. However, my LingoAce contact said that they will not stop the recording, and they will not delete it. Original post (about the signup experience) ================================== As American-born Chinese, we do not speak but we'd love our kids to learn Chinese. Our issue is that LingoAce only communicates in Chinese (even though they say they have English customer service/speakers, their English is really poor). We even tried contacting the North American office in Los Angeles, thinking that might be a better experience. But even just asking a question "How can I sign up?" requires that we create an account. I guess it's not surprising that the customer service experience is not what we're used to in the United States, since this is apparently a Singaporean company. A few other things that differ from a US perspective -- communications are via WeChat or phone. Phone is inconvenient since you need to schedule during Asian (Chinese/Singaporean hours), and while they will use email - it inevitably reverts to WeChat (and in Chinese!) Fortunately, WeChat has a translate option, but I really wanted to make sure I had a clear understanding before paying money. Also, if I can't even sign up easily - what will the customer service be like if I run into any issues (scheduling, website, anything at all) AFTER I sign up? Finally, they are very focused on selling only! They even tried to convince me to sign up our 1-year-old baby for classes! UPDATE Jan 17, 2021: Via TrustPilot, they asked for our account/registration(?) number, and then they'd look into things. We replied with all the info, but since we did not sign up for classes, no one is helping us. Side note: A parent we know is trying to coordinate a group buy. It appears LingoAce (unsurprisingly, perhaps) offers better deals to Chinese speakers. The other parent was offered 110 classes for $900. We were offered 74 classes for $900. Also, in order to get all the classes, we need to post about LingoAce once a week on social networks. I see that someone else mentioned this, I guess this is why I hear about LingoAce so often. Finally, we were told the deal ends today, and we need to sign up ASAP if we want it. One other issue is that we took a free trial class 6 months ago, so we no longer qualify for a trial class to re-assess my child's level. This is not something they are doing wrong, but it is probably not a good policy for them. LingoAce is telling me that I "already listened to the first class", so I don't get any more chances to listen. The problem is that I don't speak Chinese, my child stopped in-person Chinese classes, and I don't know how much Chinese they know at this point. For those in the US, this is a very non-customer-friendly company - probably normal in other parts of the world, but not the US.