Privacy & Data

What we collect

What we do not collect

• Your GPS location: we do not request or store location data
• Data from other apps on your device
• The content of websites you visit after you leave QRbolt and open a link in your browser
• Advertising profiles or data sold to third parties

Threat checking

When you scan a URL, QRbolt checks it against our local threat database (sourced from PhishTank and OpenPhish) and, when configured, Google Safe Browsing. On a cache miss, the full URL may be sent to Google for that lookup.

A result of "No warnings found" means the URL was not on any list we checked at that moment. It does not mean the site is certified safe. Always use your judgment before opening unfamiliar links.

Community link reports

If you choose to report a link as safe or malicious, we store the URL, domain, report type, the prior automated verdict, and when you reported it. Aggregated report counts may be shown to other users for context only. They do not change the automated safety verdict.

In-app usage data

To improve educational content and measure how features are used, QRbolt collects anonymous interaction data tied to the same pseudonymous device identifier used for scan sync:

• Learn articles: which articles are opened, dismissed, or read through; optional 1–5 star ratings
• Business CTAs: when promotional cards are viewed, tapped, or dismissed
• Wi‑Fi and vCard QR codes: when static codes are detected and whether you joined, saved, or dismissed
• Product pages: the product's barcode number and what you did with it: opened it from a shared link, opened the share sheet or finished sharing, saved or unsaved it, saw or dismissed the hint to set up a diet profile, and the fact that you set a diet profile

Your allergen and diet profile, and the list of products you have saved, stay on your device. They are never sent to us. When you set a profile we record only that you did, not what is in it.

This data is not sold or shared with third parties for advertising. There is no per-feature toggle to disable it. It is part of how we operate and improve the product, similar to anonymous scan-verdict data.

Sharing your impact

When you tap Share on your scan stats or a scanned link — including "Share to Instagram Story" and "Copy Caption" — QRbolt generates an image and/or text caption on your device and hands it to your phone's normal share sheet, or opens Instagram directly. None of this touches QRbolt's servers. What happens after you choose where to share is governed by that destination app's own privacy policy.

Sharing a product works the same way. The image and caption are made on your device, along with a qrbolt.app link. That link carries only the product's barcode number, nothing about you or your profile. Someone who opens it without the app sees a general page about QRbolt, not your product details. We count that the share sheet was opened or a share was finished, as described under In-app usage data, but never what you shared or who you shared it with.

Push notifications (iOS)

On iOS, you may grant permission to receive push notifications. If you do, we store an Apple push notification device token so we can send security alerts or important app updates. You can revoke permission at any time in iOS Settings; there is no separate in-app push toggle.

Shelf Index and brand classification

Synced scans feed Canada's public Shelf Index: aggregated statistics on how brands use QR codes (GS1, dynamic, or legacy). Only totals and percentages are published; no individual scan or user appears in the Index. Brands with too few scans are suppressed until they meet a minimum sample threshold.

To label brands and categories, new scan domains may be sent to Anthropic (Claude Haiku) for lookup. Only the domain name is sent, never full URLs. Results are cached so each domain is classified once.

A per-user opt-out from Shelf Index contribution is not available yet. Your scans still receive a full safety check regardless of how they are used in aggregates.

Product barcodes

Scanning a product barcode is not a link check, so there is nothing to verify against our threat database. Instead we look the barcode up and show you what the product is.

That information comes from Open Food Facts, an open database maintained by volunteers. We keep our own copy of it, so looking up a barcode does not tell Open Food Facts anything about you. Your device asks us, and we answer from our own database.

One exception, stated plainly: product photographs are loaded by your device directly from Open Food Facts. We do not host their images, so when a product picture appears on your screen, their servers see that request from your device. Everything else about the lookup stays with us.

Searching a barcode on Google or Amazon only happens when you tap those buttons yourself, and sends nothing but the barcode number.

See Open Data for the licences involved and how to obtain our copy of the database.

Approximate location

When your device syncs scans to us, we record the country and city that your internet connection appears to come from. We work this out from the network address the request arrives on. We do not use GPS, and the app never asks for location permission, so this is approximate and reflects your connection rather than where you were standing.

It applies to the whole batch a device sends, not to each scan individually. A phone that was offline and syncs later gets the country and city of the moment it synced, not of where each scan happened.

We use it to show regional safety patterns and to build the Shelf Index. If you would rather we did not hold it, deleting your account removes it along with everything else.

Keeping and deleting your data

Scan records are kept for as long as your account exists, because their purpose is to give you your history back on a new phone and to build a long-run picture of QR safety. We do not expire them on a timer.

You can delete your account from Settings in the app. That erases your scans wherever they are held, your account record, and the devices registered to it. It is a real deletion, not a deactivation, and it is not reversible. Signing out is separate: it clears the scan history stored on that phone and releases the device, but leaves your synced history intact for when you sign back in.

Scanning works without an account. Scans made while signed out are recorded against the device rather than a person, and are never joined to an account afterwards unless you sign in on that same device.

Canadian data residency

Mobile app data is stored and processed in Canada on Canadian infrastructure. Scan data is not transferred outside Canadian jurisdiction for storage. This is how the system was built from day one, not a future roadmap item.

QRbolt's data practices are designed to be consistent with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and its provincial equivalents. We take a minimisation posture: we collect only what we need to operate the safety service and build the Shelf Index.

Website visitors (qrbolt.app)

This marketing website uses Google Analytics (Google Tag Manager) to understand page traffic. Standard cookies and page-view data may be collected by Google. The native QRbolt app does not include Google Analytics. See Google's Privacy Policy for how Google handles that data.

Contact

Questions about data or privacy? Email us at privacy@qrbolt.com. For enterprise and business-customer data practices on qrbolt.com, visit qrbolt.com/privacy.