Privacy: Lemmatrix and ɛλicit
Last updated 7 November 2026.
Lemmatrix is a free, source-available program for linguists (lemmatrix.org),
made by Joshua A. G. Smolders. ɛλicit is its web page for remote elicitation: a researcher sends a speaker a link,
and the speaker records words or sentences on their phone or computer. This page says what happens to data in both.
In short: nothing is sent to the developer, and there is no server of Lemmatrix's own.
Lemmatrix (the program on the researcher's computer)
- A researcher's database, recordings and notes stay on their own computer.
- To send ɛλicit requests through Google Drive, Lemmatrix asks the researcher to sign in to Google and asks for one
permission only,
drive.file: access to the files and folders Lemmatrix itself creates in their Drive.
It can't see, read or change anything else there.
- With it, Lemmatrix makes a folder for each request in the researcher's Drive, puts the request (the words to ask
for, pictures and recordings to repeat) in it, downloads the speaker's recordings when they come back, and then
deletes the request's folder. A request that expires (after 7 days) before it is received stops being shared:
Lemmatrix deletes its pictures, recordings to repeat and request file from the Drive.
- The sign-in is kept only on the researcher's computer (on Windows, in Windows' Credential Manager). "Sign out of Google Drive" in Lemmatrix removes it and
withdraws it at Google. Access can also be removed at any time at
myaccount.google.com/permissions.
- Lemmatrix's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the
Google API Services User Data Policy,
including the Limited Use requirements. Data from Google is used only to send and receive the researcher's own
requests; it is never sold, never used for advertising, and never sent to the developer or anyone else.
The ɛλicit page (on the speaker's phone or computer)
- The page is a static page on Cloudflare Pages, at lemmatrix.org. It has no cookies, no analytics and no tracking.
- It reads the request from the researcher's Google Drive (the files the researcher shared by link) and uses the
microphone only while the speaker presses Record.
- Recordings are kept in the browser on the device until they have reached the researcher, then deleted from it.
They go straight to the researcher's own Google Drive (or, for a request sent as a file, in the file the speaker
sends back), never to the developer or to Cloudflare.
- Cloudflare, which hosts the page, may keep ordinary web server logs (such as IP addresses) as described in
Cloudflare's privacy policy.
Google handles the files in Drive under
Google's privacy policy.
Research ethics
Requests go only to participants a researcher has listed, and the page asks the speaker to confirm who they are and
that they have signed a participation agreement. Each researcher is responsible for their own participants' consent
and for how they store and use the recordings.
Contact
Questions or concerns: email lemmatrix.support@gmail.com.