Privacy Policy

Crosscheck collects as little as possible and never sells it. This page explains exactly what we receive when you use the site, submit a claim, message us on WhatsApp, or subscribe to our newsletter — and what we deliberately do not store.

Last updated: July 13, 2026

The short version

We run no advertising and no ad-tracking. We do not sell, rent, or trade your information. We store the content you send us (a claim, a message, an email address) for editorial and delivery purposes, and we reduce identifiers like IP addresses and phone numbers to a one-way, irreversible hash before storing them. That's the whole model.

What we collect, and why

Claim submissions (the site form). When you submit a claim through our submission form, we receive the claim text you write and an optional source URL. To prevent spam and abuse, we store a salted, one-way hash of your IP address — never the address itself — and use a privacy-preserving anti-bot check (Cloudflare Turnstile). We keep submissions so an editor can review them; we can't promise to cover every one.

If you opt in on the submission form, we store your email address solely to notify you once when your submission is fact-checked, and we delete it afterward.

WhatsApp messages. If you send us a fact-check suggestion over WhatsApp, we receive the text of your message and your WhatsApp phone number. We store your message text and a salted, one-way hash of your number (for spam prevention) — we do not store your raw phone number. We may send you a single automated reply confirming your suggestion was logged. Your message travels over WhatsApp's own infrastructure, so Meta's WhatsApp Privacy Policy governs that transport; this policy covers only what we do with your message once we receive it.

Newsletter. If you subscribe, we store your email address and an unsubscribe token so we can send the digest and honor opt-outs. Every email includes a one-click unsubscribe link, and you can leave at any time.

Analytics. We use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which is cookieless and does not fingerprint or track you across sites. It gives us aggregate page counts, not profiles of individuals.

Cookies

We do not use tracking or advertising cookies. The site functions without storing anything on your device for marketing purposes. Our anti-bot and security provider (Cloudflare) may set strictly necessary tokens to distinguish humans from bots and protect the site; these are not used to profile you.

Who we share with

We do not sell or trade your information, and we share it only with the service providers that make the site run: Cloudflare (hosting, security, and cookieless analytics), Resend (newsletter email delivery), and Meta / WhatsApp (only as the transport for messages you choose to send us). Each processes data on our behalf to provide its service. We may also disclose information if required by law.

How long we keep it

Submissions and WhatsApp messages are retained while they are under editorial consideration and for a reasonable period afterward for record-keeping; hashed identifiers used for rate-limiting age out on a rolling window. Newsletter subscriptions are kept until you unsubscribe. You can ask us to delete data you sent us at any time.

Your choices

You can unsubscribe from the newsletter with the link in any email. You can ask us to access or delete information you've submitted by emailing the desk. Because we store only hashed forms of IPs and phone numbers, we may need the original context (for example, the message you sent) to locate a specific record.

Children

Crosscheck is a political fact-checking publication intended for a general adult audience. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them.

Changes to this policy

If we change what we collect or how we handle it, we'll update this page and revise the date above. Material changes will be reflected here rather than sent individually.

Contact

Questions about privacy, or a request to access or delete your data, go to [email protected]. For how we select and rate claims, see our methodology.