Privacy by Design —
Not as an Afterthought
Most analytics tools were built to collect as much data as possible, then retrofitted with privacy settings. Argusmetrics was designed the other way around: privacy is the foundation, not the feature.
What we collect
Every data point we collect serves a specific analytical purpose. Nothing more. All data is aggregated — there are no individual visitor records.
What we never collect
These are hard technical constraints built into the system — not policy promises that could be changed by a terms update.
How visitor identification works
To count unique visitors without cookies, we use a daily-salted hash. Here is exactly how it works — no magic, no hidden steps.
Before anything else, the last octet of the visitor's IP is zeroed out. 203.0.113.42 becomes 203.0.113.0. This means up to 256 users on the same network subnet share the same starting point — making the hash far less precise, and impossible to reverse-map to an individual.
A fresh random salt is generated at midnight UTC each day. Yesterday's salt is discarded and never stored. This means the same visitor produces a completely different hash on different days — making day-to-day tracking technically impossible, even with access to the database.
The domain of the site being tracked is included in the hash input. This guarantees that hashes are site-specific — a visitor to shop.example.com gets a different hash than the same visitor on blog.example.com. No cross-site data linkage is possible.
A server-side secret key, unique to each Argusmetrics installation, is added to the hash. Even if someone knows the algorithm, the daily salt, and the IP range, they cannot reproduce or reverse the hash without knowing this secret. It is never exposed to the browser or transmitted over the network.
This lets us accurately count unique visitors within a day while making it mathematically impossible to track the same person across multiple days. This approach is used by Plausible Analytics and has been reviewed and approved by CNIL, the French data protection authority.
Skip the consent banner
Cookie consent banners are required under GDPR and ePrivacy Directive when you use cookies or similar tracking technologies. Argusmetrics uses neither.
Because we collect no personal data as defined by GDPR Article 4, and because our daily-salted hash cannot be used to identify or track any natural person, Argusmetrics analytics falls outside the scope of consent requirements.
Your visitors get a cleaner experience. You get data you can actually trust (no consent bias). Everyone wins.
Where your data lives
Infrastructure transparency matters. Here's what's under the hood.
All compute and database infrastructure runs on Railway in the EU region. Your analytics data never leaves European jurisdiction.
Data is stored in a managed PostgreSQL database with automated backups. Only aggregated event data is persisted — no raw visitor records.
All data in transit is encrypted via TLS 1.3. The tracking script communicates with the backend over HTTPS exclusively.
GDPR compliance
We've thought through the legal framework so you don't have to spend hours with your DPO.
You are the data controller for your website's analytics. Argusmetrics acts as a data processor on your behalf, processing only what is strictly necessary to provide the service.
A standard Data Processing Agreement (DPA) is available to all customers on request. Enterprise customers can request a signed DPA as part of onboarding.
Because we store no personal data, there is nothing to erase for individual visitors. Site owners can delete their entire analytics dataset from the dashboard at any time, with immediate effect.
Because Argusmetrics collects no personal data, you can rely on Legitimate Interest as your lawful basis — removing the need for consent-based data collection entirely.
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