Privacy

Nearly everything on the Internet starts with a DNS request. DNS is the Internet’s directory. Click on a link, open an app, send an email and the first thing your phone or computer does is ask its directory: where can I find this?

Unfortunately, by default, DNS is usually slow and insecure. Your ISP, and anyone else listening in on the Internet, can see every site you visit and every app you use — even if their content is encrypted. Creepily, some DNS providers sell data about your Internet activity or use it to target you with ads. Cloudflare, in partnership with APNIC, runs 1.1.1.1, a recursive DNS service that values user privacy. Even though most Internet users have no insight into the Recursive DNS process or the entities involved in that work, there are legitimate concerns about how personal information collected through the Recursive DNS process are used or repurposed.

Cloudflare commits that 1.1.1.1 was designed for privacy first, and as a result:

• Cloudflare will never sell your data or use it to target ads. Period.
• All debug logs, which we keep just long enough to ensure no one is using the service to cause harm, of are purged within 24 hours.
• Cloudflare will not retain any personal data / personally identifiable information, including information about the client IP and client port.
• Cloudflare will retain only limited transaction data for legitimate operational and research purposes, but in no case will such transaction data be retained by Cloudflare for more than 24 hours.
• Cloudflare will only retain or use what is being asked, not who is asking it. Unless otherwise notified to users, that information may be used for the following limited purposes:
• Under the terms of a cooperative agreement, APNIC will have limited access to query the transaction data for the purpose of conducting research related to the operation of the DNS system.

Frankly, we don’t want to know what you do on the Internet — it’s none of our business — and we’ve taken the technical steps to ensure we can’t.