Privacy policy

Short summary (plain English)

PDFChamp is a free collection of PDF tools that runs entirely inside your web browser. We do not require accounts. We do not upload your PDFs to any server. We do not sell, share, or rent personal information. By default, we set no analytics or advertising cookies. If you choose to accept analytics, we use Google Analytics 4 with IP anonymization to understand which tools are useful. If we display advertising in the future, those ads come from third-party networks whose practices are governed by their own policies. We honor Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals as an opt-out of analytics and advertising consent. In short: there is almost nothing about you for us to know, store, or share.

1. Who this policy applies to

This policy describes how the PDFChamp project (“PDFChamp”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) handles information when you use pdfchamp.app (the “Site”). It applies to all visitors worldwide. We have written it to be compatible with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the UK Data Protection Act, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), the Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD), the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the Australian Privacy Act, and similar privacy frameworks. Where any local law grants you stronger rights than those described here, those local rights apply.

2. Client-side processing — your files never leave your device

Every PDF tool on PDFChamp runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript and WebAssembly. When you open, merge, split, compress, convert, or otherwise process a PDF on the Site, that file is loaded into your browser's memory on your own device. It is not transmitted to PDFChamp, to any backend server we operate, or to any third party. We do not operate file-processing servers, and we have no technical capability to receive, read, store, or recover the contents of your documents. When you close the tab or refresh the page, the file is discarded from browser memory. You can verify this for yourself: open your browser's developer tools, switch to the Network tab, and run any tool on the Site — no outbound POST request carries your file.

3. No accounts, no profiles, no tracking of you as a person

PDFChamp does not offer user accounts. There is no sign-up, no login, no password, no profile, and no persistent user identifier created by us. We do not build advertising profiles. We do not fingerprint your device. We do not attempt to identify you across sessions or across other websites.

4. Cookies

By default, PDFChamp sets no cookies of its own. We do not use cookies for advertising, profiling, or session tracking. If you accept analytics through our consent banner, Google Analytics 4 may set cookies in your browser to measure aggregated usage (see Section 5). If third-party advertising is later displayed on the Site, those ad providers may set their own cookies subject to their own policies and your consent (see Section 7). You can clear or block cookies at any time through your browser settings.

5. Analytics (Google Analytics 4, opt-in only)

We would like to know which tools people actually use, so we can improve them. To do this, we use Google Analytics 4 (“GA4”), provided by Google. GA4 is only loaded after you give explicit consent through our consent banner. If you do not consent, GA4 is not loaded and no analytics cookies are set.

When enabled, GA4 acts as a processor of limited, mostly aggregated data on our behalf. We configure GA4 with IP anonymization enabled, so your full IP address is not stored. GA4 collects information such as the pages you view, the tools you use, your approximate region (derived from a truncated IP), device type, browser type, language, and referring page. GA4 uses cookies (typically named _ga and _ga_*) to distinguish unique sessions in an aggregated way. We do not link this information to any identity, and we do not use GA4's advertising features, demographic reports, or Google Signals.

You can withdraw consent at any time by reopening the consent banner from the Site footer, by clearing your cookies, or by installing Google's official opt-out browser add-on.

6. Local storage

The Site uses your browser's local storage for a single purpose: to remember your cookie and analytics consent preference, so we do not show the banner on every visit. This local storage entry contains a simple yes/no value and a timestamp. It contains no personal information, no identifier, and is readable only by your own browser. You can delete it at any time through your browser's site-data settings.

7. Third-party content and advertising

PDFChamp is a free service. To keep it free, we may display advertising on the Site. When advertising is enabled, ads may be served by third-party ad networks. When ads are displayed, the ad provider may set its own cookies, retrieve a truncated IP address, and collect technical information such as your user agent in order to deliver and measure ads. These activities are governed by each ad provider's own privacy policy and are subject to your consent where required by law. We do not share your PDFs, file contents, or any user-provided data with advertisers, because we never receive that data in the first place. Where the law requires opt-in consent for personalized advertising, ads will be served in a non-personalized mode unless you have given that consent. If you have signaled Global Privacy Control (see Section 13), we treat that as an opt-out of personalized advertising.

8. Hosting and access logs

The Site is delivered through a content delivery network (CDN) and standard web hosting infrastructure. Like virtually every website on the internet, the servers that deliver our HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and images automatically receive standard request metadata: an IP address, a user agent string, the requested path, a timestamp, and an HTTP response code. This information is used strictly for operational purposes: serving the Site, defending against abuse, rate-limiting attackers, and diagnosing technical errors. These logs are retained for a short period (typically up to 30 days) and are not used to build profiles, are not combined with other data, and are not sold or shared for marketing.

9. Children's privacy

PDFChamp is a general-audience utility site. It does not contain age-gated content, does not knowingly market to children, and does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone. If you are below the age of digital consent in your jurisdiction, please use the Site only with the involvement of a parent or legal guardian. Because we do not collect personal data, there is no children's data for us to hold, and nothing to delete on request.

10. Data retention

We do not collect personal data, so there is nothing personal to retain. The only data points that exist at all are: (a) short-lived CDN access logs as described in Section 8, and (b) aggregated, IP-anonymized analytics events held by Google on our behalf (if you have consented), retained according to GA4's standard retention setting, which we keep at the shortest available option.

11. Your privacy rights — honestly framed

Depending on where you live, you may have rights under laws such as GDPR, the UK DPA, CCPA/CPRA, LGPD, PIPEDA, and the Australian Privacy Act. These rights typically include: the right to access personal data we hold about you, the right to correct it, the right to delete it, the right to restrict or object to processing, the right to data portability, the right to withdraw consent, and the right not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the data protection authority in your jurisdiction.

Here is the honest part: because PDFChamp does not collect or store personal data tied to you, in nearly all cases there is nothing for us to access, correct, port, or delete. If you nevertheless wish to make a request — for example, to confirm that we hold no data about you, or to ask us to remove an analytics record by approximate timeframe — contact us at [email protected] and we will respond within a reasonable time as required by applicable law.

We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined under CCPA/CPRA, LGPD, or similar laws, and we have no financial incentive program tied to personal data.

12. Do Not Track

Some browsers transmit a “Do Not Track” (DNT) header. There is no universal industry standard for how to interpret DNT, but because our default state is already to set no analytics or advertising cookies, a DNT signal does not change what we do: we continue to collect nothing until you explicitly opt in.

13. Global Privacy Control (GPC)

PDFChamp recognizes and honors the Global Privacy Control signal. If your browser or extension sends a GPC signal, we treat it as a clear opt-out of analytics, of any advertising-related consent, and of any “sale” or “sharing” of personal information as defined under applicable law. With GPC active, the consent banner will default to a rejected state and analytics will not load, regardless of any prior choice you made on this device.

14. International transfers

The Site is delivered through a globally distributed CDN, which means the server physically closest to you typically responds to your request. The result is that the Site may be served from any region of the world depending on your location. No personally identifiable information is intentionally transferred internationally by us, because we do not collect any. CDN access logs and (if consented) anonymized analytics data may be processed by infrastructure providers in multiple regions. Where applicable law requires safeguards for cross-border data flows, we rely on the providers' standard contractual protections and data processing terms.

15. Security

Because your files are processed locally in your browser and never sent to us, the most important security boundary is your own device. The Site is served over HTTPS to protect the integrity of the JavaScript that runs in your browser. We do not store user files, passwords, or personal records, which removes entire categories of breach risk.

16. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time, for example to reflect changes in the tools we offer, the third parties we rely on, or applicable law. When we make a material change, we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, surface a notice on the Site. Continued use of the Site after an update means you accept the revised policy.

17. Contact

For any privacy question, rights request, or concern, contact us at [email protected]. We aim to reply within the timeframes required by the privacy law that applies to you. You can also reach the project via the Contact page.