Privacy Policy
Effective October 25, 2026
This is an English translation of the Korean original. To the extent permitted by law, if the two differ, the Korean version governs.
The operator of Minikong (the ‘operator’, also ‘we’ or ‘us’; the privacy officer named in section 9) has adopted this policy in accordance with the Personal Information Protection Act of the Republic of Korea to protect users’ personal information and to handle complaints promptly. What follows describes exactly what the app and the server actually do.
1. At a glance
- Spell checking happens only on your computer. By default, the text you write is not sent anywhere.
- Where the input field cannot be read (terminals, and apps such as Figma that draw their own text), Minikong rebuilds the text from the keys you press, on both Mac and Windows, and checks it for typos on the device only. That text is kept only in memory and is not stored or sent anywhere.
- Text leaves your computer in only two cases, and each turns on only with your separate consent (both are off at first): (1) sharing checked text snippets (to improve quality); (2) the subscription AI features (AI checks, translation and tone polishing).
- The Minikong server does not store the text used by AI features. It keeps only request counts, character counts, token counts and costs.
- Payments are handled by Paddle as the seller (Merchant of Record). Only Paddle receives card numbers, and we do not store information that comes with payment notifications, such as the last four digits of the card, or buyers’ email addresses.
- There is no account sign-up, and we do not ask for your name or phone number.
2. What we process, why and for how long
| When | Information | Purpose | Retention |
|---|---|---|---|
| When you use the app | Information the app stores on your computer, such as settings, your personal dictionary and downloaded characters | Running the app | Stays only on your computer and is not sent to the operator. |
| On-device checking (from key presses) Only where the input field cannot be read (including terminals) · Mac and Windows · on the device | Text rebuilt in Minikong’s memory from the keys you press (received through the Input Monitoring permission on a Mac, and on Windows through keyboard input detection without a permission prompt), together with the Korean/English input mode at that moment (for typo checking). It is not stored in or sent to files, databases, logs, the server, AI or snippets. Keys are not read in password fields, during secure input, in the address bar, in remote desktop sessions, in virtual machines, in certificate or OTP windows, in password managers, or in banking, securities trading or meeting apps, and keys entered by other programs on your behalf are not read either. In browsers, only the hidden input fields of web apps that draw their own text, such as Figma and Google Docs, are read. In full-screen mode, keys are read only while you are typing on that screen. | Checking typos where the input field cannot be read | Not retained. The text exists only in Minikong’s memory and is cleared when you move to another field or app, press Enter or pause. Result cards are kept for up to 5 minutes. The corrected text goes to this device’s clipboard only when you click Copy fix (교정문 복사). |
| Sharing checked text snippets Optional consent · age 14 or older | Text snippets in which phone numbers, email addresses, resident registration numbers, bank account and card numbers, addresses and the like have been masked on the device (a few words before and after the misspelled word, or one sentence; 300 characters or fewer); the snippet’s type, how it was handled and its language; who found it (Minikong or the AI second check) and, if the AI found it, the wrong wording, the AI’s correction, the error type and whether Minikong also noticed that spot (if you agreed to a consent text that includes these items); the app version; the operating system type and version; the consent text version; and the times the snippet was created and received. IP addresses and device identifiers are not stored with them. | Improving spell-checking quality | Server: automatically deleted 24 months after the date received. Queue on the device: deleted once sent or after 1 year, and immediately if you turn off your consent. |
| Subscription AI features Subscription + optional consent · age 14 or older | Text sent: if you turn on AI checks, the text in the input field once checking has finished (up to 2,000 characters); for translation and polishing, only that text and only when you press the button yourself (up to 5,000 characters): for translation, text you have selected when you click Minikong (or press Command+C on a Mac, or Ctrl+C on Windows, twice quickly) or click Translate (번역), and for polishing, text you click Polish (다듬기) for. Merely selecting text does not cause it to be read or sent. Phone numbers, email addresses, bank account and card numbers, addresses, web addresses and the like are replaced with placeholders on the device before sending (people’s names may not be masked). Usage records: pass and device IDs, feature, time, character count, token count, cost, response time and whether the request succeeded. Totals are also kept separately to check usage limits: for each pass, the number of successful AI checks that day and that month and the number of characters successfully translated or polished that month, and the AI cost of the whole server for that month. | Providing AI features; managing usage limits and costs | Text: AI features do not store the text; they only pass it on to the AI provider. Only if you have separately consented to ‘Sharing checked text snippets’ is a masked snippet around a spot found by the AI second check kept under that consent (see the row above). Usage records: automatically deleted 13 months after they are recorded. If a pass or device record is deleted before then (at your request or by the automatic deletion in the row below), that ID is cleared from the usage records so that no one can tell whose records they are. Totals are cleaned up daily: daily totals for days before yesterday (Korea time) and monthly totals for months before last month are deleted. When a pass record is deleted, that pass’s totals are deleted with it. |
| Passes and devices | Pass codes (a hash for lookup and a copy encrypted with the server key; gift and manually issued codes are replaced with a new code when first redeemed, and the hash of the original code is used only to show the ‘code already redeemed’ notice); plan, status, period and limits; the payment provider’s subscription and transaction IDs; the Paddle customer ID and the payment environment (test or live); the device name (the model only, such as ‘Mac (Apple Silicon)’; the computer’s name is not sent); a hash of the device token (the token stays in your computer’s keychain and is sent only with requests); and the times of registration, last check-in (accurate to within 1 hour) and unlinking. If the operator issues a code directly and records the recipient’s email address, that email address (encrypted). | Providing the subscription, managing the device limit, showing the code for registering another device, and checking refunds and inquiries | Unused codes (gift codes and manually issued codes) are kept with no time limit (gift codes do not expire). Passes that are in use or in a grace period are not deleted. A pass whose use has ended is automatically deleted 1 year after it ended. Its devices and claim records are deleted with it, and its ID is cleared from the AI usage records and payment issue records. A pass ends at the earliest of these: when its period ends (or, if there is a grace period, when the grace period ends); when it is revoked (or, if its period had already ended by then, when the period ended); and when it is merged into another pass. An unlinked device is automatically deleted 1 year after it was unlinked. If you ask us to delete these records sooner, we will delete them after verifying your request (once deleted, the pass can no longer be used). |
| Subscribing in the app | Plan; device name (model); the purchase claim and a hash of its verification secret; the Paddle transaction ID of the checkout; status and times; and the device token (encrypted) that the app collects after payment | Turning on the subscription in the app as soon as payment is complete | The encrypted device token is deleted as soon as the app reports that it has received it; even if it does not, the token is no longer handed out 24 hours after payment and is deleted at the next cleanup. Claims are deleted after 7 days. |
| Buying a gift subscription | The gift claim (period, a hash of the verification secret, status and times), the issued gift code (encrypted), the Paddle transaction IDs of the checkout and the payment, and a browser confirmation cookie | Showing the gift code again in the browser used for payment | The encrypted code is deleted after 7 days and the gift claim after 30 days. The gift code itself remains in the pass records. |
| Payment notifications | Paddle notification ID, type, time of occurrence and processing result; IDs of refunded or charged-back transactions; and, for payments the operator needs to fix (such as double payments), the transaction and subscription IDs, type and time. Paddle notifications may include payment details such as the last four digits and expiry date of the card, the cardholder’s name and, if you paid with PayPal, your PayPal email address, but the server uses only the IDs needed for processing (transaction, subscription and customer IDs), the period and the status, and does not store the notification body. | Not processing the same notification twice, reflecting subscription status, keeping a refunded payment from re-creating a pass, and handling payment issues | Notification records, refunded transaction IDs and payment issue records are automatically deleted after 90 days |
| Inquiries | Email address for replies (encrypted), inquiry code, subject and message, handling status and operator notes | Answering inquiries | Resolved inquiries (answered or closed) are automatically deleted 3 years after the operator last updated them (changed their status or notes). New inquiries are not deleted automatically until they are resolved. If you ask us to delete an inquiry, we delete it right away. |
| Legacy gift links Issued directly by the operator | Order (memo) number, the buyer’s email address (if recorded; encrypted), amount, download time and platform, and download records | Viewing the gift link again and downloading | Email addresses are automatically deleted after 1 year and download records after 2 years. Gift link records (order number, amount, download time and platform) have no automatic deletion period (unused gift links do not expire). |
| Download page | Only the platform downloaded (Mac or Windows), the time, and which route the download came from (download page, in-app update or operator). To tell the routes apart, the app or browser information in the request (User-Agent) and the operator marker (section 5) are checked on the spot, but that information is not kept. IP addresses are not kept. The installers themselves are downloaded directly from GitHub (section 3). | Download statistics (new downloads and app updates are counted separately, and downloads by the operator are not counted) | Kept with no automatic deletion period, as these statistics cannot identify individuals. |
| Website visits and button clicks | Only the names of public pages (home, pricing, download, gift subscription, support, terms, privacy and refund, including the English pages) and of the main buttons, the date (Korea time) and that day’s totals. No cookies or IP addresses are used, and information the browser sends (such as the User-Agent) is checked on the spot only to confirm that a person opened the page or clicked the button, and is not kept. | Statistics for improving the site (visits per page and click-through rates) | Automatically deleted 400 days after the day counted |
| Updates, character list and connection checks | The app version and operating system type contained in requests (User-Agent) and the IP address. The app checks the update list 30 seconds after launch and every 6 hours, and downloads new checking data if there is any. The app downloads installers for new versions directly from GitHub (section 3). If you are subscribed, it checks the pass status once a day. | Providing updates, checking data and characters | Not kept in the Minikong database (only in the access logs below). Only when an installer is downloaded through an in-app update do the platform, the time and the label ‘in-app update’ remain in the statistics in the ‘Download page’ row above. |
| All connections | IP address, requested address and method, request headers (such as browser and app information) and the response result | Troubleshooting errors, security and preventing abuse (rate limiting per IP address in 1-minute units); showing the right download button for your computer (for this purpose, browser information is checked on the spot and nothing extra is stored) | Up to 7 days in Cloudflare’s server logs. Rate limiting only counts requests in 1-minute units. |
| Operator admin records | Actions taken by the operator (time, type and target ID), the IP addresses of sign-in attempts to the admin pages, and a hash of the IP address of the operator’s computer allowed to make test payments (for 24 hours). No text or secret values are kept. | Security and incident investigation | Automatically deleted 1 year after they are recorded. |
Download links are signed addresses that can be used for only 60 minutes. Server records past their retention period are cleaned up automatically once a day. ‘Deleted’ and ‘automatically deleted’ in the table mean deleted from the database. As described in section 6, deleted records remain in Cloudflare’s point-in-time recovery data for up to a further 7 days.
3. Who processes or receives personal information (processing on our behalf and transfers abroad)
| Recipient (privacy contact) | What they do | What is transferred | Country, timing and method | Their retention period |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare, Inc. privacyquestions@cloudflare.com | Servers, database and access logs (the entire Minikong server) | All the server-side information in section 2 | US company · the database is in the Asia-Pacific region (Cloudflare D1 location ‘apac’; the country and data center within it are chosen by Cloudflare and not guaranteed), and requests are processed at the Cloudflare data center closest to the user · each time the app or a browser connects to the server · encrypted (HTTPS) | The retention periods in section 2 (deleted records remain in the point-in-time recovery data for up to 7 days); access logs up to 7 days |
| Paddle (Paddle.com Market Limited and other Paddle group companies) privacy@paddle.com | Merchant of Record: payment, tax, receipts, refunds and subscription management | Paddle receives the information that buyers enter in the checkout themselves (such as email address, payment method and country) directly from them. The Minikong server passes on the purchase claim or gift claim ID and the price ID when it creates the checkout transaction, the Paddle customer ID and subscription ID when the subscription management page is opened, and the subscription ID (as a request to cancel the subscription) at a refund or revocation. | United Kingdom and other countries · when the checkout opens, at payment, when the subscription management page is opened, and at a refund or revocation · HTTPS | Under the Paddle Privacy Policy, kept for the limitation period under applicable law (or, if a dispute or investigation is ongoing, until it ends) and then deleted or anonymized (Paddle Privacy Policy) |
| Anthropic or OpenAI Anthropic privacy@anthropic.com · OpenAI dsar@openai.com | AI checks, translation and tone polishing (one provider chosen by the operator) | Text sent by users who have turned on AI features (after masking on the device) | United States · each time an AI feature is used (when you click or when a check finishes) · HTTPS | Anthropic: deletes the text it receives and its outputs within 30 days (text flagged for usage policy violations is kept for up to 2 years and the related classification scores for up to 7 years, or longer if required by law) · OpenAI: keeps abuse-monitoring logs for up to 30 days (longer if required by law or needed to prevent harm) |
| GitHub, Inc. privacy@github.com | Storing and delivering installers (the download page and in-app updates) | Connection information that your browser or the app sends to GitHub when downloading an installer (IP address, browser or app information and the like) | United States · each time an installer is downloaded · your browser or the app connects directly over HTTPS | Under the GitHub Privacy Statement |
Installers are downloaded from GitHub. Both when you download one from the download page and when the app downloads an update, your browser or the app connects directly to GitHub, so GitHub may process connection information such as your IP address and browser or app information under the GitHub Privacy Statement. Checking data is relayed by the Minikong server. If you do not want your information transferred abroad, leave snippet sharing and consent for AI features turned off, or turn them off. Processing by Cloudflare, Paddle and GitHub is essential for the server features, payments and downloading installers, so if you do not want it, you cannot use those features (subscriptions, updates and downloads). On-device checking remains available.
4. Children under 14
Users under 14 cannot turn on snippet sharing or the subscription AI features (the app confirms your age at the start). On-device checking can be used regardless of age.
5. Cookies
- The home, pricing, terms, download and support pages do not use cookies. There are no advertising or analytics cookies or tracking tools either.
- We count page visits and button clicks only as daily totals. No cookies or IP addresses are used, and information the browser sends (such as the User-Agent) is checked on the spot only to confirm that a person opened the page or clicked the button, and is not kept. So we cannot tell who visited.
- A browser used to buy a gift subscription keeps a confirmation cookie (HttpOnly, Secure) for up to 7 days so that the gift code can be shown again.
- The checkout (Paddle) may use Paddle’s cookies and storage to process payments.
- The admin pages use an operator sign-in cookie (12 hours). A browser that has been used to access the admin pages keeps a marker cookie (HttpOnly, Secure) for up to 400 days so that the pages the operator opens, the buttons the operator clicks and the installers the operator downloads are left out of the statistics. Public pages only check whether this marker is present, and this cookie is not created in other users’ browsers.
- You can block cookies in your browser settings, but then viewing a gift code again or paying may not work.
6. How deletion works
Server records past their retention period are automatically deleted from the database once a day. Deleted records still remain in the point-in-time recovery data of the Cloudflare D1 database (Time Travel, which is always on and cannot be turned off) for up to 7 days before they disappear. This recovery data is used only to undo database incidents. The app also deletes items in its queue once their time limit has passed. When you ask us to delete your information, we verify the request and delete it in the same way, using the deletion function on the admin pages (pass, device and purchase records, and inquiries).
7. Your rights
- You can ask to access, correct or delete your personal information, or to stop its processing, via kimyanghyeon12@gmail.com or the contact form. We will reply within 10 days.
- The legal guardian of a child under 14 can also exercise the same rights over the child’s personal information in the same way (please include information that shows you are the legal guardian). You can also make requests through a representative.
- Directly in the app: if you turn off snippet sharing under Privacy (개인정보) in Settings → General (일반), which was the Privacy tab up to version 0.9.2, snippets that have not been sent yet are deleted immediately, and in Settings → Subscription & AI (구독·AI) you can turn off AI consent or unlink this device.
- Snippets stored on the server contain no information that identifies a person or device, so we cannot pick out and delete a particular person’s snippets (they are automatically deleted after 24 months).
- You can manage payment information and cancel your subscription in the Paddle customer portal, which you can open with Manage subscription (구독 관리) in the app, or at paddle.net.
- For advice on or to report a privacy violation: Personal Information Infringement Report Center (privacy.kisa.or.kr, dial 118 with no area code), Personal Information Dispute Mediation Committee (www.kopico.go.kr, 1833-6972), Supreme Prosecutors’ Office (www.spo.go.kr, 1301), Korean National Police Agency (ecrm.police.go.kr, 182).
8. How we keep it safe
- All connections between the app or a browser and the server are encrypted (HTTPS).
- Pass codes, device tokens and claims are looked up only by their hashes, and email addresses, the payment provider’s secret keys and codes kept for viewing again are stored encrypted with the server key (AES-256-GCM).
- Text is masked on the device before it is sent, and the server checks snippets again and rejects any that contain sensitive patterns. Text used by AI features is not stored. Text rebuilt from key presses where the input field cannot be read is used in the device’s memory only for typo checking and is not stored or sent.
- The admin pages can be accessed only with a secret passphrase and are protected by sign-in attempt limits, same-site-only requests and action logs. Only one operator has access.
9. Privacy officer
Name: 김양현
Contact: kimyanghyeon12@gmail.com or the contact form
10. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we will announce it on this page and update the effective date.