Every tech company has a privacy policy. They all say some version of:
“We take your privacy seriously. We promise to protect your data. We won’t sell your information.”
How’s that working out?
The Promise Problem
Privacy promises get broken. Constantly.
The Acquisition Problem
Company A has great privacy practices. They get acquired by Company B. Privacy policy changes. Your data flows to new hands.
This isn’t theoretical:
- WhatsApp promised end-to-end encryption privacy. Then Facebook bought them.
- Fitbit promised health data protection. Then Google bought them.
- Countless startups with great intentions get absorbed by data-hungry giants.
Promises don’t survive acquisitions.
The Breach Problem
“We promise to keep your data secure.”
Then the breach happens. Every major company has been breached or will be:
- Yahoo: 3 billion accounts
- Facebook: 530 million accounts
- LinkedIn: 700 million accounts
- Equifax: 147 million accounts
Promises don’t prevent breaches.
The Policy Change Problem
“Our privacy policy may change from time to time.”
Translation: “We promise not to be evil… until it becomes profitable to be evil.”
Companies regularly update privacy policies to allow more data collection, more sharing, more monetization. Users “consent” by continuing to use the service.
Promises change with business needs.
The Legal Compulsion Problem
“We only share data when legally required.”
Government subpoena? Data gets handed over. National security letter? Data gets handed over. Court order in a civil case? Data gets handed over.
Promises yield to legal pressure.
The Zero Knowledge Alternative
What if, instead of promising not to look at your data, a system was designed so looking was impossible?
That’s zero knowledge architecture.
The Difference
Traditional approach: “We collect your data but promise to handle it responsibly.”
- Data exists
- Company has access
- Promise is the only protection
- Promise can be broken
Zero knowledge approach: “We designed our system so we never have your data.”
- Data is never collected, or
- Data is transformed so it’s meaningless to us
- No promise needed
- Nothing to break
Real-World Analogy
Promise-based security: Your neighbor has a spare key to your house. They promise not to use it without permission.
Zero knowledge security: Your neighbor doesn’t have a key. They couldn’t enter if they wanted to.
Which makes you feel more secure?
How We Apply Zero Knowledge
At Zero Trust Analytics, we don’t promise to protect your visitors’ privacy. We architect so we can’t violate it.
IP Addresses
Other analytics: “We collect IP addresses but anonymize them in reports.”
Us: We receive the IP address (unavoidable with HTTP), hash it with a daily-rotating salt, then immediately discard the original. The hash can’t be reversed. We literally cannot recover the IP address.
We can’t look at IP addresses because we don’t have them.
User Tracking
Other analytics: “We don’t track users across sites.”
Us: We use daily-rotating salts. Even if we wanted to track a user over time, the math makes it impossible. Yesterday’s visitor hash and today’s visitor hash can’t be connected.
We can’t track users because the system prevents it.
Personal Data
Other analytics: “We don’t store personal data… unless you send it in URLs or events.”
Us: Our system actively scans for PII patterns (emails, phone numbers, names) and blocks storage. Even accidental PII inclusion gets caught.
We can’t store personal data because our safeguards prevent it.
Data Sharing
Other analytics: “We don’t sell your data.”
Us: We have nothing worth selling. Anonymous, aggregated page view counts aren’t valuable to advertisers. We couldn’t monetize our data if we wanted to.
We can’t sell your data because there’s nothing to sell.
The Technical Implementation
Here’s how zero knowledge works in practice:
Step 1: Data Arrives
A visitor loads a page. Their browser sends us:
- IP address (in the HTTP request, unavoidable)
- User agent
- Page URL
- Referrer
Step 2: Immediate Transformation
Before anything is stored:
visitor_hash = SHA256(IP + UserAgent + DailySalt)
The original IP is used only for this computation, then discarded from memory.
Step 3: Salt Rotation
Every 24 hours, the salt changes. Same visitor tomorrow = different hash. The hashes are mathematically unlinkable.
Step 4: PII Scanning
Any data destined for storage is scanned:
- Email pattern detected? Block.
- Phone pattern detected? Block.
- Name patterns? Block.
Step 5: Storage
Only anonymous, aggregated data is stored:
- Page paths
- Visitor hashes (unlinkable)
- Timestamps
- Device categories
- Country/region
Nothing that could identify anyone.
Why This Matters
For Breaches
If someone breaches our database, they find:
- Hashed visitor IDs (meaningless)
- Page view counts (boring)
- Geographic aggregates (public info anyway)
A breach of our system reveals nothing about individual visitors.
For Legal Requests
If we receive a subpoena for “all data about user X”:
- We can’t identify “user X” in our data
- We have no IP addresses to cross-reference
- We literally cannot comply because the data doesn’t exist
We’re not refusing to hand over data. We’re incapable of providing it.
For Acquisitions
If we get acquired by an evil megacorp:
- They get aggregated, anonymous analytics data
- No PII to exploit
- No advertising profiles to monetize
- No user data to harvest
Our architecture protects users even if our corporate structure changes.
The Trust Equation
Traditional privacy: You must trust: the company, its employees, its future owners, its security practices, its legal responses, its policy commitments.
Zero knowledge privacy: You must trust: the math.
Cryptographic hashing has been battle-tested for decades. SHA256 is used to secure billions of dollars in cryptocurrency. The math works.
Conclusion
When someone says “I promise not to look at your data,” they’re asking you to trust:
- Their intentions
- Their competence
- Their future behavior
- Their future owners
- Their legal responses
When we say “We can’t look at your data,” we’re asking you to trust:
- Mathematics
One of these is significantly more reliable.
Privacy through architecture, not promises. See how it works or start your free trial.