TorWatch

Privacy on TorWatch

TorWatch runs no analytics, sets no cookies and has no forms. There is no account to create, no newsletter sign-up, no comment box and no tracking pixel. Nothing is written to your browser's cookies or local storage, so there is no banner to accept and nothing of TorWatch's to clear afterwards; your browser keeps its own cache and history, as it does for any site. The one record a visit can leave is the web server's access log, described below. If analytics, a cookie or a form is ever added, this page changes at the same time to say what is collected and why.

What the web server can record

Every website is delivered by a server, and servers commonly write an access log by default. For a request to a TorWatch page, that log can hold:

  • the IP address the request came from;
  • the date and time;
  • the page or file requested, and whether it was delivered;
  • the browser and operating system your browser reports (the user agent);
  • the referring page, if your browser sends one.

Those logs are kept by the hosting provider. TorWatch adds nothing to them: there is no analytics script, no advertising code and no third-party embed on the pages to collect more.

If you read TorWatch in Tor Browser, the IP address in that log is the Tor exit relay's, not yours. How Tor hides your address explains why the server at the far end only sees the exit.

Pages link to sources such as court records, audit reports and project documentation, and to the tools they discuss. None of those links carries a referral or tracking code. Once you follow one, you are on the other site, and its own privacy policy applies, including any cookies or analytics it runs.

If you email

Writing to the address on the contact page is the only way TorWatch receives anything you choose to send. Your message, your email address and whatever your mail provider adds to it reach the author's inbox. If what you are sending is sensitive, write from an address that isn't tied to your name, and read the email section of the privacy tools page first.