Privacy

Privacy policy.

WP Footprint was designed with privacy as a starting constraint, not an afterthought. This page lists exhaustively what the plugin sends to WP Footprint Pulse, what it doesn't send, and how you can erase everything.

When does data leave your site?

Never by default. The plugin runs locally and stores its results on your site. No data leaves your server until you have explicitly checked the "Contribute to WP Footprint Pulse" box in the plugin settings.

On first enrollment only

Once, when you turn opt-in on, the plugin registers itself with WP Footprint Pulse via a cryptographic challenge. This exchange uses:

  • Your domain name, sent once to prove this site is yours (Pulse calls back your admin-ajax.php to verify an Ed25519 signature).
  • The URL of your admin-ajax endpoint, used only for this verification callback, never kept after enrollment.
  • The domain is then kept on our server for audit and re-verification, but is never displayed publicly nor attached to your scans. All subsequent submissions use only an opaque identifier.

What is sent (if opted in)

For each scan you choose to share:

  • A random identifier (64 hexadecimal characters), generated locally at install time. It's this identifier — not your domain — that accompanies every scan.
  • The WordPress version, the PHP version, and possibly the MySQL/MariaDB version.
  • The active theme slug (e.g. twentytwentyfour).
  • A hash of the sorted list of other installed plugins (to detect problematic combinations without knowing the actual list).
  • For each scanned plugin and for the active theme: their slug, version, and the five measured deltas (time, memory, SQL, assets, external HTTP).

What is never sent

  • The URL of your pages, your content, your visitors' IP addresses.
  • The admin email or any user email.
  • The content of your site (posts, pages, media, database).
  • Your WordPress credentials or any third-party credentials.
  • No advertising identifier, no browser fingerprint — there's no client-side tracking.

How data is protected in transit

All requests to WP Footprint Pulse use HTTPS and each scan is signed locally with your site's private Ed25519 key (generated at install time, never transmitted). Pulse verifies the signature with the public key registered at enrollment — there is no shared secret. A timestamp included in the signature prevents replay attacks.

Data retention

  • Raw scans are kept for at most 1095 days, after which they are automatically purged.
  • Anonymous aggregations (medians per version, daily snapshots) are kept indefinitely — their aggregation is WP Footprint Pulse.

Your rights

The random identifier representing you on WP Footprint Pulse is known only to your WP Footprint instance and to our database. You can:

  • Disable sending at any time in the plugin settings (uncheck the box → no more data is sent). It's immediate and reversible.
  • Uninstall the plugin: no new data is sent. Already-received scans stay aggregated anonymously (the opaque identifier is only used for deduplication) until the retention period above expires.
  • Request deletion of all data associated with your identifier by writing to us — see « Contact » below. Deletion is processed manually within 30 days. To do this, retrieve your identifier from the plugin settings before uninstalling.

Cookies & analytics

The WP Footprint Pulse website (the public ranking, distinct from the WordPress plugin) uses a single third-party analytics tool: Google Analytics 4. No advertising cookies, no social network cookies, no remarketing pixels.

Which cookies are set?

If you accept, three cookies may be set from the wpfootprint.com domain:

  • _ga — Google Analytics. Statistically identifies a visitor. Lifetime: 13 months.
  • _ga_WYHMLXK41V — Google Analytics. Holds the analytics session state. Lifetime: 13 months.
  • wpf_cookie_consent_v1 — remembers your choice (accepted or refused) so we don't ask again on every visit. Technical storage, not used for tracking. Lifetime: ~6 months (localStorage).

Before your choice

Until you explicitly accept, no analytics cookie is set. Google Analytics runs in Consent Mode v2 with analytics_storage denied by default: only fully anonymous, aggregated information (cookieless pings, no identifier) can be sent to count traffic.

Change your mind

Click "Manage cookies" in the footer at any time to bring the banner back and update your choice.

Contact

For any question about your data, write to [email protected].

Last updated: 21 July 2026.