Privacy Policy
Last updated: September 2, 2026
Cognate is a vocabulary app made by Tanzi Labs LLC. There is no account, no sign-up and no e-mail address to give us. This page describes exactly what the app does with information, and it is written to be checkable against the app’s behavior rather than to be reassuring.
What stays on your device
Everything you build in Cognate — the words you are learning, your review history, your measured vocabulary estimate, your lists and your settings — is stored on your device. We do not receive it, and there is no server of ours that holds it.
iCloud sync
If you are signed in to iCloud, Cognate keeps your study data in sync across your own devices using Apple’s CloudKit, in your private iCloud database. Apple processes that data under Apple’s terms; Tanzi Labs has no access to it and cannot read it. If you are not signed in to iCloud, the app works exactly the same way and nothing is synced.
Dictionary downloads
Dictionaries are downloaded once from packs.tanzilabs.com and then work entirely offline. Like any web request, this reaches our hosting provider, Cloudflare, which may keep standard access logs briefly for security and reliability.
Those logs hold items such as the file requested, an IP address and an approximate region. Because there is no account, these logs are not connected to any identity, and we do not use them to build a profile of you.
Purchases
Purchases and subscriptions are handled by Apple. Cognate never sees your payment details.
To know whether a subscription is active, the app uses RevenueCat. It receives purchase and subscription status together with a randomly generated identifier, and basic app and device information such as app version and country. We do not send RevenueCat your name, e-mail address or study data, because the app does not have them.
On-device intelligence
On supported devices, Cognate can generate a memory hook for a word you keep forgetting, or an example sentence for a word the dictionary has none for. This runs on Apple’s on-device foundation model: the word, its dictionary entry and your vocabulary never leave your phone, and nothing is sent to us or to any other company. Generated text is always labeled as generated, can be dismissed for any individual word, and the whole feature can be switched off in the app.
Screen Time shield
If you turn on the optional focus shield, you choose which apps to block. For those apps, iOS gives Cognate only opaque tokens: the app is technically unable to learn which apps you selected, and that information never leaves your device.
Apple Watch, widgets and extensions
The Watch app, the widgets and the Share extension read the same on-device data through an app group. They make no network requests of their own.
What we do not do
Cognate contains no analytics, no advertising, no attribution or tracking SDK, and does not use the advertising identifier (IDFA). It does not ask for your contacts, photos, location or microphone. It does not track you across apps or websites, and it does not sell or share personal information.
Children
Cognate is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect personal information from them.
Your choices
You can delete a downloaded dictionary at any time from the app. Deleting the app removes the study data stored on that device; data kept in your own iCloud account is managed through your Apple Account settings.
Contact and changes
Questions about this policy are welcome at hello@tanzilabs.com. Any material change will appear on this page with a new “last updated” date above. Tanzi Labs’ company-wide policy is at tanzilabs.com/privacy.
Governing entity
Tanzi Labs LLC, Wyoming, United States.