PRIVACY
Your files stay on your device.
Obsidian Black Ltd operates TraceBench. The tool reads your CSV files, fingerprints them and runs every trace in your browser. There is no account, no email step and no upload: the files you load and the traces you run are never sent to us.
What the browser keeps
TraceBench starts with a temporary project held only in memory while the tab is open. It is not written to browser storage, cookies or the address bar, and closing or refreshing the tab loses it. Keep this unfinished setup in the project and Keep trace in project history add to that same project in memory; neither saves it to the device. With Save on this device, the whole project is stored in this browser's site storage until you delete it from Open saved work or clear the site data. Anyone using the same browser profile can open it. New temporary project starts again and leaves saved projects in place. Preparing for offline use stores the tool's own files, never your files, traces or projects.
A project holds everything needed to check a trace again: every file you loaded, byte for byte, with its original name, size, load time and SHA-256 fingerprint; the columns you left out; your declarations of what each file records and covers, including any owner or retention notes you add; every earlier version of a file or its meaning; your identity decisions and their reasons, including withdrawn ones; and the traces you keep. Saved projects are listed under the names you gave your files. Codes, file contents and file names never appear in page addresses or tab titles, and download names are fixed, such as tracebench-report.pdf.
Files, fingerprints and the camera
Files are opened with your browser's file picker and read in the same tab. Their SHA-256 fingerprints are calculated on your device. Values in a file, including any web addresses, are shown as text and never opened. A fingerprint shows that a file has not changed since it was loaded; it does not show who made the file or whether its records are true.
If you choose Scan with the camera, your browser asks for permission to use the camera. The camera image is decoded in your browser to read the barcode. No image or video is stored or sent anywhere, and the camera is released when the scanner view closes. A keyboard scanner types into the page like a keyboard, and you can always type the code instead.
Import a backup reads the file you choose in your browser and checks its original files, fingerprints, column meanings, references and saved traces before it replaces anything; the file is not uploaded.
Reports, backups and downloads
Downloads are created in your browser and saved where you choose. Unlike some SmartFACT free tools, TraceBench reports contain your data: the trace PDF and both CSV formats hold the exact question, every reached code, every link with the original cells of its rows, the gaps, the project warnings and each file's name, declarations and fingerprint. Download unchanged original returns a loaded file's exact bytes. Download a backup holds the whole project described above. Store and share them as carefully as the original files, and check them for private data before sharing.
Network requests and links
Loading the site retrieves its own pages, scripts, styles and fonts. The camera decoder and the report font load from this site the first time you use them, or all at once when you prepare for offline use. The tool's menu reads the list of SmartFACT products and their icons from this site; those requests carry nothing from your project. Hosting providers may record ordinary request details such as IP addresses and paths. Once loaded, reading files, tracing and downloads need no further requests, and TraceBench never looks records up anywhere else. Links to Help and to other SmartFACT products open only when you select them and carry no tracking marker. No code, file name or value is ever placed in a link.
Feedback and support
TraceBench has no feedback or problem-report button, and nothing from the tool is sent with a message. To ask a question or report a problem, use the SmartFACT support form; to share an idea, use our feedback form, where leaving your email address is optional. Both links carry only the tool's name. Describe what happened with made-up codes where you can, and review any report or backup before you share it.
Saved work summary (Your workbench)
When you save work in TraceBench, it stays in this browser on this device. So that every SmartFACT free tool's menu can show where you have saved work, the free tools also keep a small summary in a cookie named sf_workbench, set for smartfact.ai so that each free tool can read it.
What it stores: for each free tool with work saved on this device, a short name for the tool (for example countbench), how many items are saved there (up to 999) and when that tool last saved. What it does not store: titles, codes, scans, file names, values, notes or anything you typed, and nothing that identifies you or your device.
Where it is sent: the free tools read it in your browser. Like any cookie, your browser also includes it when it requests a free tool's application pages on smartfact.ai (addresses ending in /app/). SmartFACT does not use it on its servers, does not include it in analytics and does not share it.
How long it lasts: 180 days after a free tool last updated it, and each free tool you open updates it. Some browsers, including Safari, delete it 7 days after it was last updated, which is about as long as they keep the saved work itself without a visit.
How to clear it: choose Clear the summary under Your workbench in any free tool's menu, or delete your browser's cookies for smartfact.ai. Clearing it does not delete any saved work; a tool with saved work adds its line again the next time you open it.
Videos
Some pages show a video. Until you press play it is a picture from this website, and nothing is loaded from YouTube. When you press play, the page loads the video from YouTube’s privacy-enhanced service (youtube-nocookie.com); YouTube then receives your connection and device information and may store data in your browser, under Google’s privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy. You can also watch the video on YouTube itself.
Optional analytics
With your consent, we use Google Analytics to understand visits to our pages and the tool. The Google tag stays off until you accept. Rejecting analytics does not affect the tool.
Google receives page views, browser and device details, connection information and cookie identifiers. Our events use fixed page names and never include codes, rows, values, file contents, file names, declarations, fingerprints, trace results, query strings or fragments. Referrers are reduced to their origins on these pages and left out in the tool. When you follow a link to another SmartFACT product or service from these pages, one suite_cta_click event records only this tool's name, the destination product and a fixed name for where the link appeared. In the tool, one suite_next_step event records the same three things. Advertising personalisation is disabled. Offline use and downloaded files never send analytics.
Your analytics choice is remembered for 180 days in a preference cookie shared across smartfact.ai and its subdomains, including product websites and apps. Use Analytics settings on any site or in the tool to accept or reject analytics across the suite. Google Analytics cookies remain specific to each host and last up to 180 days. Open pages check for changes; other sites remove their analytics cookies when next opened or resumed. Saving projects on this device and your analytics choice are separate controls.
Google processes analytics data under its own arrangements, which may involve processing outside the UK.
Contact
Contact [email protected] about your information or to exercise your data rights. You can also raise a concern with the UK Information Commissioner at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/.
