Privacy Policy
Last updated June 30, 2026
Korea Scam Check (“the Service”) is a free tool that checks suspicious Korean messages, phone numbers, bank accounts, and links for scams. It is operated by an individual, Youngji Kim, in the Republic of Korea. There is no account and no login. This policy explains what the Service processes, why, and the choices you have.
1. What we process to run a check
- Message text is sent to our analysis provider (Anthropic) to assess scam patterns. It is not stored.
- Phone and bank-account numbers are sent to the Korean National Police cyber-fraud lookup for the check. Before any logging they are irreversibly salted-hashed (SHA-256); the original numbers are not stored.
- Links (URLs) are sent to Google Safe Browsing to check for phishing and malware.
- IP address is used transiently, in memory, only for rate-limiting to prevent abuse. It is not stored.
- For each check we keep an anonymous record — the verdict, the hashed entity, the check type, and the surface (web/MCP) — to build a fraud-reputation signal. This record contains no readable personal data.
2. Analytics & cookies
We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how the Service is used. It sets cookies and collects standard analytics data such as pages viewed, approximate (city-level) location, device type, and product events — for example, which kind of check you ran. We deliberately send only coarse, non-content signals: a size bucket of your input (never the message, number, or link itself) and the resulting verdict label. We do not use this data for advertising, and Google advertising/“Signals” features are off. You can opt out using your browser’s settings or a tracking/ad blocker.
3. Human review (when you ask for it)
If you choose “Get a human to verify” or message us directly, you are explicitly asking a person to look at your case. Only then — and only for that purpose — do we store the item you submitted, the verdict, your email address, and any note you add, so that we can reply to you. This is separate from an automated check, which never stores your message. We use this information solely to respond to your request and do not share it for any other purpose.
4. Third parties we rely on
We share only what is necessary to perform a check or run the Service, with:
- Korean National Police (cyber-fraud lookup) — phone/account checks
- Google Safe Browsing — link checks
- Anthropic (Claude) — message analysis
- Serper — supplementary web-search verification
- Supabase — storage of the hashed records and human-review requests above
- Google Analytics — usage analytics (Section 2)
- Vercel — hosting
We do not sell your data. We do not request or store conversation history, files, or any account credentials.
5. Retention
Message text is never stored. Hashed entity records are retained to maintain the fraud-reputation signal. Human-review records are retained while we handle your request and for a reasonable period afterward. You may request deletion of records associated with a specific entity or with your email at any time.
6. Your choices
- Opt out of analytics via your browser settings or a tracking/ad blocker.
- Request access to, or deletion of, your data by emailing us (below).
7. Contact
Questions or deletion requests: youngji.kim79@gmail.com