Data handling & privacy
How Lookup stores, retains, and deletes the data behind your lookups.
What we store
We never store the raw email address, phone number, IP address, or domain you look up. Every input is reduced to a SHA-256 hash before it is written to storage. Usage logs (lookup requests) hold these hashes plus metadata — timestamp, result type, status — and are automatically deleted once they age out of your organization's retention window.
Retention
Retention is configurable per organization, from 7 to 3650 days (90 days by default). A nightly job purges lookup request logs older than your configured window. You can change your retention window any time from Settings.
Reputation data
Some lookups return an aggregated, anonymized reputation signal — how often a hashed input has been seen, and by roughly how many distinct organizations. These aggregates are keyed by hash only; they carry no organization identity and no raw input. Cross-organization counts ("seen by N organizations") are only ever shown once at least 5 distinct organizations contributed to that count (k-anonymity) — below that threshold the field is omitted entirely, so no organization's activity can be inferred from another's data. No organization's data is ever exposed to another organization.
Fraud velocity signals
When you verify multiple identifiers together, we record an anonymized co-occurrence count for that pair — a note that two hashed identifiers were verified together, used to detect fraud and velocity patterns (for example, one phone number appearing alongside many different emails). We store only counts keyed by hash; neither the identifier itself, nor any link between two specific identifiers, is stored in a recoverable form. Cross-organization counts use the same k-anonymity rule as reputation data — they are shown only once at least 5 distinct organizations have contributed. Deleting your organization's account removes your organization's contribution to these counts; the anonymized global aggregates, which contain no personal data and no organization identity, may remain.
Deleting your data
Organization owners can permanently delete their organization from Settings — this removes all of your organization's API keys, lookup logs, batch jobs, subscription, and credit history. This action is irreversible. Anonymized reputation and co-occurrence aggregates, which contain no personal data and no organization identity, may remain after deletion.
Contact / DPA
Questions about this policy or requests for a Data Processing Agreement — contact privacy@lookup.theaode.com or reach out to support.