Last updated: 6 July 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how Beat the Scam uses analytics, advertising, and website technologies when you browse the site. Beat the Scam is an independent UK publication; for data-protection purposes the data controller is its publisher, who you can contact at privacy@beatthescam.com.
What information we collect
The site does not offer user accounts, comments, or direct purchases. Standard server logs may record technical data such as browser type, device type, and approximate location.
AI scam checker
When you use the AI scam checker, the text you submit is sent to Anthropic’s Claude API for analysis. This text is not stored by Beat the Scam. To prevent abuse of the free tool, the checker keeps a rate-limit counter keyed to a hashed form of your IP address; it is used only to enforce per-minute and daily limits, is never linked to your submission, and is not used to identify you. Do not include full passwords or bank account numbers in checker submissions.
Google Analytics
The site uses Google Analytics 4. Analytics cookies are only enabled after consent where required.
Advertising
The site uses Google AdSense. To serve, measure, and (with your consent) personalise ads, Google and its partners may use cookies, web beacons (pixel tags), your IP address, and device or online identifiers. In the UK and EEA, your consent for advertising and analytics cookies is collected through Google’s certified Consent Management Platform (the consent message you see on your first visit), which records your choice under the IAB Transparency & Consent Framework. Until you consent, ads are non-personalised and no advertising-personalisation cookies are set; if you consent, Google and its partners may use the technologies above to personalise and measure ads. On pages dealing with debt, insolvency, or money lost to scams, ads are served non-personalised regardless of consent. You can change your choice any time via the Cookie settings link in the footer. For more on how Google uses this data, see How Google uses information from sites that use its services.
Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites. Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and/or other sites on the internet. You can opt out of personalised advertising from Google at any time in Google Ads Settings, and opt out of many other third-party vendors’ personalised-ad cookies at aboutads.info/choices or, in the UK and Europe, youronlinechoices.com.
Newsletter
If you subscribe to email updates we use double opt-in: we email you a confirmation link, and your address is only added to our list once you click it (so no one can sign up an address that isn't theirs). Your email address and consent are then stored by, and the emails delivered through, Resend (our email provider). We use your address only to send Beat the Scam updates, never sell or share it, and every email carries a one-click unsubscribe link.
Who processes your data
We deliberately keep the list of third parties ("sub-processors") that may handle your data short. Each links to its own privacy policy:
- Google — Analytics (GA4) and AdSense. Usage data, and — only after you accept — advertising and analytics cookies. Policy.
- Anthropic — processes the text you submit to the AI checker to produce a verdict. We do not store it; Anthropic may retain it for up to 30 days under its standard API policy and does not train on it. Policy.
- Resend — stores newsletter subscribers and delivers our emails. Policy.
- Netlify — hosts the site; its server logs may briefly record your IP address and request details for security and reliability. Policy.
- Ahrefs — cookieless visitor analytics, with no personal profiles or cross-site tracking. Policy.
Data retention
Checker submissions are processed in real time and not stored by Beat the Scam, though Anthropic — the API provider that analyses the text — may retain it for up to 30 days under its standard policy. Newsletter data is kept until you unsubscribe. Analytics and server-log data are retained according to each provider's standard periods.
Cookie choices
In the UK and EEA, a Google-certified consent message lets you accept or reject non-essential (advertising and analytics) cookies, and change your choice at any time via the Cookie settings link in the footer. Elsewhere, a simple cookie banner offers the same accept/reject choice, stored locally in your browser.
Our lawful bases
We rely on your consent for advertising and analytics cookies and for newsletter emails — you can withdraw it at any time (via the Cookie settings link, by unsubscribing, or by contacting us), without affecting any processing already carried out. We rely on legitimate interests for essential security and server logging and for operating the AI checker you choose to use.
Automated decisions and international transfers
The AI scam checker returns an automated, educational assessment of the text you submit; it does not make any decision that produces a legal or similarly significant effect on you. Some processors (for example Google and Anthropic) may process data outside the UK/EEA; where they do, transfers are covered by appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum or EU Standard Contractual Clauses.
Your rights
If you are in the UK or EEA you have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict or object to the processing of your personal data, to data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time. To exercise any of these, email privacy@beatthescam.com. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk (or, in the EEA, your local data-protection authority) — though we’d appreciate the chance to put things right first.