Privacy Policy

The short version

• The text you check, and any screenshot you add, is sent to Google's Gemini AI to be analyzed. The text is also sent to Google to find official scam advice that matches it.
• Any web addresses in your message may also be checked with Google's Safe Browsing service. Only the addresses are sent, not the rest of your message.
• Links and phone numbers in your message are looked up in lists of public information that Guardia keeps in its own database. Looking something up doesn't save it.
• Guardia doesn't keep your message or screenshot on its servers: no accounts, and nothing from your check is saved after your answer comes back.
• Your past checks are saved only on your own device, and you can delete them any time. For a screenshot, that's the text we read from it, never the picture.
• Because of how Google treats free AI services, please leave card numbers, passwords and ID numbers out of what you paste, and crop anything private out of a screenshot.

What you send

When you press “Check This”, the text in the box is sent over a secure (HTTPS) connection to Guardia's server, which passes it to Google's Gemini AI and returns the answer to you. Guardia doesn't write your message to a database or to its own logs.

To find official advice about the kind of scam a message looks like, the text of your message (for a screenshot, the text we read from it and any note you wrote) is also sent to Google's embedding service, which turns text into numbers so it can be compared with Guardia's library of advice. It is part of the same Google Gemini service and is covered by the same terms, described below. The library itself is stored on our side.

If your message (or the text we read from a screenshot) contains web addresses, Guardia can also check up to three of them with Google's Safe Browsing service, which flags websites Google believes are dangerous. Only the web addresses themselves are sent, with anything after a “?” or “#” removed, never the rest of your message. Google says its information isn't perfect: some risky websites may not be flagged, and some safe ones may be flagged by mistake. This check is optional and may be switched off.

Guardia also compares the web addresses and phone numbers it finds with public lists kept in its own database, hosted by Render, a database hosting company. To do that, each address (again without anything after a “?” or “#”) and phone number is sent to that database to be looked up. Guardia doesn't save these lookups, and the database holds only public information (see “What Guardia keeps on its servers”).

If you add a screenshot, your browser first shrinks it and saves a plain copy of the picture, which removes hidden details a photo file can carry, such as where it was taken. That copy is sent along with anything you typed. Guardia doesn't save the picture anywhere: it exists only in your browser's memory while you check it, and is gone when you finish or leave the page.

A screenshot can show more than you realize: names, phone numbers, notifications, or other messages in the same conversation. Everything visible in the picture is sent, so crop out anything private first.

Like any website, our hosting providers (Vercel for the website and Render for the database) may keep ordinary technical records of requests, such as the time and network address. Guardia doesn't ask either of them to record what you wrote or the pictures you add.

What Guardia keeps on its servers

Guardia's database holds public information only, none of it from people who use Guardia:

• Public lists of websites reported for phishing or for spreading harmful software, and when each list was last updated.
• Phone numbers that people reported to the US Federal Trade Commission, with only how many reports each had on each day. Guardia drops the city, state, subject and time of each complaint before saving anything.

The library of official scam advice is part of the Guardia app itself. Nothing from your checks is added to any of this: not your message, not the links or numbers found in it, and not the results of looking them up. Where the lists and advice come from is explained, with credits, on How Guardia works.

What Google does with it

Guardia currently uses Google's Gemini API on its free tier, for both the analysis and the matching of official advice. Under Google's terms for that tier, Google may use what's sent, including pictures such as screenshots, to improve its products and technology, and human reviewers may read it. Google says it first disconnects the text from your Google account and from Guardia's account with them. Google also asks people not to send sensitive, confidential or personal information through free services.

That's why we ask you to leave out bank or card numbers, passwords, Social Security or other ID numbers, and similar details. You can still check a message with those parts removed or replaced, for example with “[number]”, or a screenshot cropped to just the message. The answer doesn't depend on them.

Read Google's own wording in the Gemini API terms (opens in a new tab). The Safe Browsing check has its own terms (opens in a new tab). If Guardia changes how it uses Google's services, we'll update this page.

What stays on your device

Guardia saves your recent checks in your browser, on your device only: the message you checked (for a screenshot, the text we read from it and any note you wrote, never the picture), the answer you got, what we noticed about its links and numbers, the links to official advice, the date, and whether you told us you had already clicked or responded. The warning item from Google's Safe Browsing isn't kept, because Google only allows showing one while it is fresh. It keeps up to your 50 most recent checks. It also remembers your text size setting.

None of this is sent to Guardia. Anyone who uses the same browser on the same device can see your history, so on a shared computer you may want to clear it. You can delete a single check from its page, or clear everything in Settings. Clearing your browser's site data removes it too.

What we don't do

• We don't have accounts, so we don't collect your name or email.
• We don't use cookies, advertising or analytics tools.
• We don't sell your information.

Fonts and icons

To display text and icons, Guardia's pages load fonts from Google Fonts, so your browser contacts Google's servers to fetch them, as it does on many websites.

Protecting the service

To stop automated abuse, the server briefly counts how many checks come from the same network address. This count is kept in the server's memory only, isn't saved, and resets quickly.

Questions

Email saisanjay0715@gmail.com. This is a small project, so replies may take a while.