Privacy
The short version
CheckURLink doesn’t store your scans by default. There are no accounts, no advertising trackers, and no behavioural analytics. You stay anonymous unless you ask us to remember a result.
What we collect
When you check a link
- The URL you submitted, sent to upstream threat intelligence providers (listed below) so they can return a verdict.
- Your IP address, held briefly to enforce rate limits (six checks per minute per IP).
What gets written to disk
- If you leave the “Don’t save this scan” box ticked (the default): nothing about your scan is logged.
- If you untick it: we record a SHA-256 hash of the URL, a salted SHA-256 hash of your IP, the verdict, the risk score, and the duration. The raw URL and raw IP are never written to our database.
- Permalink results: if you copy or share the permalink, the result snapshot lives in our database for 90 days, then expires automatically.
- Server error logs: if a request fails, we log the error type and a request ID for correlation. No URLs or IPs in error logs.
What gets shared with third parties
The URL you submit is forwarded (in real time) to:
- Google Safe Browsing: privacy notice
- VirusTotal: privacy notice
- IPQualityScore: privacy notice
- APILayer (WHOIS lookup): privacy notice
- Microlink (destination preview screenshot): privacy notice
We do not share your IP address with these providers. We do not run any third-party advertising or analytics scripts on this site.
POPIA
CheckURLink is operated by Ubuntu Guard Cyber from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and follows the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). The combination of hashed URL + hashed IP is not personal information when separated from the salt; we treat the salt as a secret. You can request deletion of any stored scan record; though by design, we have no way to look up your scans without the original URL.
Cookies
We use one local-storage entry per user for theme preference and one for language preference. No cookies are set. No tracking, ever.
Contact
Questions about this policy: [email protected]