Chinese Reading Lens Privacy Policy

Effective date: April 23, 2026

Overview

Chinese Reading Lens is a Chrome extension that helps learners of Chinese read authentic Chinese webpages. It provides word lookup, pinyin, English definitions, word-boundary hints, source-sentence saving, local review, and export.

This Privacy Policy explains what information Chinese Reading Lens accesses, stores, uses, and shares.

Single Purpose

Chinese Reading Lens has a single purpose: to help Chinese learners read real Chinese webpages by providing fast word lookup, word-boundary hints, source-sentence capture, local saved-word management, and export for later review.

Information the Extension Accesses

When enabled on a webpage, Chinese Reading Lens may access Chinese text near the word you hover over or the text you select. This access is necessary to detect Chinese words, identify candidate word boundaries, show definitions, and capture the source sentence for saved learning items.

The extension may also access the current page title, URL, and domain when you look up or save a word. This helps preserve the reading context for later review.

Chinese Reading Lens does not collect full webpage content, full browsing history, or large unselected page text.

Information Stored Locally

Chinese Reading Lens stores the following data locally in your browser using Chrome extension storage:

  • Extension settings and preferences.
  • Disabled site settings.
  • Lookup and saved-item counts.
  • Saved words and phrases.
  • Pinyin and definitions for saved items.
  • Simplified and traditional forms.
  • Source sentences, if enabled.
  • Page titles, source URLs, and domains, if enabled.
  • Lookup method, such as hover, selection, or context menu.
  • Candidate word-boundary information.
  • Missing-word reports created from user-triggered lookups.

This data is used to provide the extension's lookup, saving, review, export, and settings features.

Information Not Collected

Chinese Reading Lens does not collect:

  • Full webpage content.
  • Full browsing history.
  • Large unselected page text.
  • Keystrokes.
  • Passwords.
  • Payment information.
  • Personal messages, except for Chinese text that you explicitly hover over, select, or save.
  • Data for advertising.

Local Storage and Deletion

Current learning data is stored locally in your browser using Chrome extension storage. You can clear local learning data from the extension's options page. You can also remove saved items from the side panel.

Uninstalling the extension may also remove extension-local data, depending on Chrome's extension storage behavior.

Data Sharing

Chinese Reading Lens does not sell user data.

Chinese Reading Lens does not share saved words, source sentences, browsing activity, or learning records with advertisers, data brokers, or analytics providers.

The current extension does not sync saved learning data to a server and does not require a user account.

If future versions add optional account sync, website handoff, or AI explanation features, this Privacy Policy and the extension disclosures must be updated before those features are released.

Remote Code

Chinese Reading Lens does not use remote code. All executable extension code is bundled with the extension package.

The extension uses packaged CC-CEDICT dictionary data bundled with the extension. Dictionary parsing and lookup run inside the extension.

Permissions

Chinese Reading Lens requests Chrome permissions only to support its reading and learning features.

  • activeTab: Used to identify the current tab when the user opens the popup or side panel.
  • contextMenus: Used to add right-click actions for selected Chinese text, such as looking up or saving selected Chinese.
  • sidePanel: Used to provide a local learning panel where users can view saved words, missing-word records, source sentences, and export learning data.
  • storage: Used to save extension settings, disabled sites, lookup preferences, local usage counts, saved words, source sentences, page titles, source URLs, and missing-word reports.
  • Host access: Used so the extension can detect Chinese text on webpages, show hover lookup cards, support selected-text lookup, highlight candidate word boundaries, and capture source sentences from the page the user is actively reading.

The extension does not use host access to collect full webpage content or full browsing history.

Third-Party Data Source

Chinese Reading Lens uses CC-CEDICT dictionary data packaged with the extension. CC-CEDICT is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.

Limited Use Disclosure

The use of information received from Chrome extension APIs will adhere to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy if Chinese Reading Lens changes how it accesses, stores, uses, or shares data. The updated policy will be posted on this page with a new effective date.

Contact

For privacy questions or support, contact [email protected].

Return to the Chinese Reading Lens homepage.