cobalt's privacy policy is simple: we don't collect or store anything about you. what you do is solely your business, not ours or anyone else's. these terms are applicable only when using the official cobalt instance. in other cases, you may need to contact the instance hoster for accurate info.

when using saving functionality, cobalt may need to proxy or remux/transcode files. if that's the case, then a temporary tunnel is created for this purpose and minimal required information about the media is stored for 90 seconds. on an unmodified & official cobalt instance, **all tunnel data is encrypted with a key that only the end user has access to**. encrypted tunnel data may include: - origin service's name. - original URLs for media files. - internal arguments needed to differentiate between types of processing. - minimal file metadata (generated filename, title, author, creation year, copyright info). - minimal information about the original request that may be used in case of an URL failure during the tunnelling process. this data is irreversibly purged from server's RAM after 90 seconds. no one has access to cached tunnel data, even instance owners, as long as cobalt's source code is not modified. media data from tunnels is never stored/cached anywhere. everything is processed live, even during remuxing and transcoding. cobalt tunnels function like an anonymous proxy. if your device supports local processing, then encrypted tunnel info includes way less info, because it's returned to client instead. see the [related source code on github](https://github.com/imputnet/cobalt/tree/main/api/src/stream) to learn more about how it works.

temporarily stored tunnel data is encrypted using the AES-256 standard. decryption keys are only included in the access link and never logged/cached/stored anywhere. only the end user has access to the link & encryption keys. keys are generated uniquely for each requested tunnel.

we use [plausible](https://plausible.io/) to get an approximate number of active cobalt users, fully anonymously. no identifiable information about you or your requests is ever stored. all data is anonymized and aggregated. we self-host and manage the [plausible instance](https://{env.PLAUSIBLE_HOST}/) that cobalt uses. plausible doesn't use cookies and is fully compliant with GDPR, CCPA, and PECR. if you wish to opt out of anonymous analytics, you can do it in [privacy settings](/settings/privacy#analytics). if you opt out, the plausible script will not be loaded at all. [learn more about plausible's dedication to privacy](https://plausible.io/privacy-focused-web-analytics).

we use cloudflare services for: - ddos & abuse protection. - bot protection (cloudflare turnstile). - hosting & deploying the statically rendered web app (cloudflare workers). all of these are required to provide the best experience for everyone. cloudflare is the most private & reliable provider for all mentioned solutions that we know of. cloudflare is fully compliant with GDPR and HIPAA. [learn more about cloudflare's dedication to privacy](https://www.cloudflare.com/trust-hub/privacy-and-data-protection/).