PARIKH LABS
Open scanner Contact

Privacy

Last updated 26 September 2026

The short version

  • Codes are read on your device. The camera image and your photos are never uploaded.
  • Personal code types (payments, Wi-Fi, contacts, two-step verification, IDs, travel documents, membership numbers) never leave your device.
  • For product barcodes and ISBNs, the scanner looks up only the number in open databases, automatically.
  • AI is used only for short plain text, only if you tap What does this mean? and agree. Products, books and payments are explained by fixed text, never by AI.
  • No advertising or tracking cookies. Fonts are served from this website.

Who we are

parikhlabs.com is run by Parikh Labs (Tanish Gaurang Parikh), registered for GST in India (GSTIN 24FZOPP9993P1ZT). For any privacy question or request, email hello@parikhlabs.com.

The scanner

The scanner at /tools/qr-scanner/ reads codes in your browser with ZXing-C++, compiled to WebAssembly and served from this website.

  • Camera: your browser asks for permission first. Frames are read in memory on your device and never sent anywhere. The camera turns off when a code is found, when you stop it, or when you leave or hide the page.
  • Photos: photos you choose, paste or drop are read on your device and never uploaded.
  • Results: shown only on your screen. The scanner keeps no history. Closing the tab clears everything.
  • Buttons: nothing happens until you tap. A link, call, message or payment app opens only when you tap its button. Pay with UPI app hands the code to your UPI app; Copy payment code and Save QR image put the code’s own text, or a picture of it drawn on your device, on your device only. We never see or process the payment.

Product and book lookups

When the scanner reads a product barcode (EAN, UPC or GS1 product number) or a book’s ISBN, it looks the number up automatically so it can tell you what the product or book is.

  • Only the number is sent. Your browser sends it to our lookup service (a Cloudflare Pages Function we operate). Our service asks the open databases: Open Food Facts, Open Beauty Facts and Open Products Facts for products, or Open Library for books. When none of them has a product, it also asks UPCitemdb and Wikidata. The databases receive only the number, from our service, which identifies itself as ParikhLabsQRScanner with a link to our contact page. They don’t receive your IP address or anything else about you.
  • What comes back. For a product: the name, brand, quantity, categories, labels, Nutri-Score, NOVA group, eco score, nutrient levels, allergens, traces, additives, the diet analysis and the ingredients list, as recorded in the database. For a book: the title, authors, first publication date, publisher and page count. From UPCitemdb or Wikidata: the name, brand, description, category, model and size only (no images, offers or prices). Where the database has no value, the scanner says “Not listed”.
  • Never for personal codes. Numbers used inside a shop or company, on membership and loyalty cards, coupons and refund receipts are not looked up, and neither is anything from payments, Wi-Fi, contacts, two-step verification, IDs or travel documents.
  • Limits. Like any website, our service sees your IP address when your browser calls it. To prevent abuse, it counts lookups per visitor (up to 60 an hour and 200 a day). The count is stored in Cloudflare’s storage under a one-way cryptographic hash of your IP address, not the address itself, and is deleted automatically after two days.
  • Cache. To avoid asking the databases the same question again, the databases’ public answer for a number is cached by Cloudflare for up to 24 hours. The cache holds the number and the public record only, nothing about who scanned it.

What does this mean? (optional AI)

For short plain text with no recognised format, you can tap What does this mean? for two or three lines written by AI. It is never offered for products, books, payments, links, Wi-Fi, contacts, two-step verification, IDs, travel documents, membership numbers, or text that looks personal.

  • Before anything is sent, we show you the exact value and who receives it. Nothing is sent unless you agree. Your agreement lasts only while the page is open.
  • Cloudflare Turnstile then checks, in your browser, that you’re a person.
  • Our service sends the text to Anthropic (Claude), which writes the answer. Every answer ends with “Based only on the code’s text. May be wrong.”
  • These requests are limited to 10 an hour and 30 a day per visitor, counted the same hashed way and deleted after two days.

What we keep

  • We don’t store what you scan, what you look up, the results or any AI summary. Our lookup service doesn’t log scanned content.
  • The only lookup records are the hashed per-visitor counts and the 24-hour cache described above.
  • The Motel POS demo, and its small preview on the home and product pages, run entirely in your browser with sample data. Nothing you do in them is sent or stored, and the demo resets when you reload.

Nothing stored in your browser

This website stores nothing in your browser: no cookies, no local storage. The scanner stores nothing either. Cloudflare Turnstile, used only for What does this mean? and when you send the contact form, may use its own storage as described in its policy.

Motion sensors

On a computer, the dotted background follows your mouse and drifts with scrolling. On phones and tablets it isn’t shown at all, so nothing moves under the page while you scroll. We never read motion or tilt sensors and never ask for motion permission. With reduced motion turned on in your device settings, the background stays still on every device.

Contact form

If you use the contact form, we receive your name, email address, the topic you chose (on the contact page) and your message. When you tap Send, Cloudflare Turnstile checks in your browser that you’re a person. Our server then sends your message to our inbox with Resend, an email delivery service. This website doesn’t store it. We use it only to reply to you. To prevent abuse, our server counts messages per visitor (up to 5 an hour and 20 a day) under a one-way cryptographic hash of your IP address, deleted automatically after two days.

Hosting, fonts and visit statistics

  • Cloudflare hosts this website and processes every request (including your IP address and browser details) to deliver and protect it.
  • Visit statistics: we count visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which Cloudflare says doesn’t use cookies or local storage and doesn’t fingerprint individuals.
  • Fonts are served from this website. The only scripts loaded from elsewhere are Cloudflare’s analytics script, which Cloudflare adds to every page, and Cloudflare Turnstile when you use What does this mean? or send the contact form.

Services we use

Each service handles data under its own terms.

Your choices

  • You can use the scanner for everything except product and book lookups without anything being sent: payments, Wi-Fi, contacts, links and the rest never leave your device.
  • To ask what personal information we hold about you, or to have it corrected or deleted, email hello@parikhlabs.com.

Children

This website is not directed at children, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from children.

Changes

If we change how we handle data, we’ll update this page and the date at the top.