Babbel

Is Babbel safe?

Yes, for most people. Babbel is a self-paced course app with no chat between learners, no public feed and no ads inside the app, so the everyday risks of social apps do not apply. We score it 63/100, just above Duolingo (61) and well ahead of Busuu, which lets strangers correct your exercises.

What holds Babbel back is data used for marketing and thin account protection. Babbel does not show ads, but it does advertise itself heavily, and its US privacy notice says it sold or shared identifiers and browsing activity with ad and social networks over the past year to retarget those ads. There is no two-step login. And Germany's federal consumer group, the vzbv, has taken Babbel to court over how it handles cancellations and voice recordings.

What data does Babbel collect?

Apple's privacy label for Babbel is short for a big app. Three types of data are listed as used to track you across other companies' apps and websites: purchases, identifiers and usage data. Linked to your identity, it adds contact info and user content. Google Play's data safety section lists device IDs shared for advertising and approximate location collected for analytics and marketing.

The privacy policy, last updated in February 2026, fills in the detail:

• Retargeting. Babbel uses pixels, cookies and similar tools so advertising partners can show you personalised ads elsewhere and match sign-ups to campaigns. Consent is asked where the law requires it. The US notice lists identifiers and internet activity as sold or shared with ad networks, analytics providers and social networks.
• Voice. Speech recognition, pronunciation checks and the AI conversation feature process your voice. Recordings go to AI providers only for transcription and are deleted after; transcripts can be stored. Babbel says recordings are used for AI training only once anonymised, and that its vendors may not train their own models on them.
• Where data sits. Babbel says it processes data "in principle" on European servers, with transfers to its US subsidiary, Babbel Inc., and to other providers under EU standard contractual clauses.

Babbel is a German company, and EU data protection law applies to it directly. That matters in practice: the cookie and tracking choices are in the app under Settings, Privacy, and the policy names its outside data protection officer.

The German consumer lawsuit

In July 2025 the Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband filed an injunction suit against Babbel GmbH at the Kammergericht Berlin (case 5 UKl 16/25). Its filing makes three complaints. First, that Babbel's website offered no cancellation page reachable without logging in, which German law requires for online subscriptions. Second, that Babbel processed users' voice recordings without consent to pick people for interviews and surveys, to build speech analysis and to train its AI. Third, that a clause in the terms disclaimed all responsibility for the output of its AI features.

These are allegations, and no ruling had been published by October 2026. The current privacy policy already states that voice recordings are not used to select study participants or to train Babbel's AI, and that only anonymised recordings feed speech analysis, which suggests the policy has changed since the filing. A separate US class action, filed in Washington state in January 2026, claims Babbel advertised sales with deadlines that were not real. Neither case is a regulator decision, so they count only as context in our score.

Babbel Live and other people

The only place you meet other people is Babbel Live, the paid online classroom. Classes are run by Babbel's language teachers, and group sessions are open only to users aged 16 and over. The terms forbid anyone from recording a session and bind learners to a code of conduct, though Babbel says it is not responsible for how other learners behave. Lessons can run in the browser, the app or third-party video software, so the usual video-call rules apply: keep personal details out of shared screens and chat.

Everywhere else Babbel is a closed course. That makes it a reasonable choice for a teenager, and the App Store's 13+ rating matches the terms, which bar children under 13.

How to use Babbel more privately

1. Turn off optional tracking in the app under Settings, Privacy, and decline the marketing cookies on babbel.com.
2. On iPhone, choose "Ask App Not to Track" when prompted; on Android, delete your advertising ID.
3. In the US, use Babbel's Do Not Sell or Share page to opt out of retargeting.
4. Use a unique password. There is no second login factor to fall back on.
5. Cancel through the App Store or Google Play if you subscribed there, and set a reminder before a trial or plan renews: subscriptions renew automatically, and web plans must be cancelled at least 48 hours before the term ends.

How we scored it

Scams and harmful content (86) is Babbel's strongest factor, because learners cannot contact each other outside teacher-led classes. Regulatory record (84) is clean of fines, trimmed slightly for the pending vzbv suit. Privacy (50) is the weakest, because identifiers are shared with ad and social networks for retargeting, and security (58) reflects the lack of two-step login and of any public bug bounty, despite a clean breach record.