Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 9, 2026

BugDrop is an open-source feedback widget that creates GitHub Issues. This policy covers the hosted BugDrop widget and service, as well as the BugDrop website at bugdrop.dev.

Feedback Data

When someone submits feedback, BugDrop processes:

  • The submitted title, description, category, and optional attachments
  • A screenshot when the site configures screenshots as optional, automatic, or required; automatic mode attempts to capture and attach a full-page screenshot on submission without a preview, but a submission may proceed without one on very complex pages or if capture fails
  • Browser, operating system, viewport, language, and page information
  • Recent console messages, timestamps, and source locations, only when the reporter chooses to include console logs
  • Optional name and email fields, when enabled by the site owner and completed by the reporter

This data is used only to create the requested GitHub Issue and associated files. Feedback content is not retained in a BugDrop analytics database. It is sent to GitHub and stored in the repository selected by the site owner.

The widget keeps a limited number of recent console entries in browser memory while the page is open. Console entries are not sent unless the reporter chooses to include them. BugDrop applies best-effort secret redaction, but console output can still contain personal or confidential information. Reporters should consider that risk before choosing to include it.

Installation Information

The hosted service retains a minimal record for active GitHub App installations. The record contains:

  • GitHub App installation ID
  • Public GitHub account name, account type, and profile link
  • Installation date

BugDrop also maintains a best-effort, unrounded per-installation count of successful GitHub Issues created through the hosted BugDrop service. The count begins when this collection is enabled and covers successful feedback across repositories available through the installation.

This information is used to operate BugDrop, understand aggregate adoption and meaningful use, and invite app owners to participate voluntarily in product research or social proof. The installation record and count do not retain repository names, issue content, screenshots, page URLs, reporter identities, IP addresses, feedback timestamps, or last-active dates for product analytics.

Installation Completion Counts

When enabled, BugDrop counts completed installations of the public GitHub App by their UTC creation date. These daily totals help us understand adoption across acquisition sources. They are not joined to website visitor identifiers and do not establish which visit, page, or campaign led to an installation.

To avoid counting a redelivered GitHub webhook twice, BugDrop temporarily stores an opaque receipt generated with a secret key from the GitHub App and installation IDs. These receipts are pseudonymous, not anonymous. The daily counter does not store the underlying IDs, account names, repository names, URLs, IP addresses, or webhook bodies. Daily reporting contains only the date, count, collection start time, and reporting update time.

Receipts remain eligible for deduplication until 30 days after the end of the installation's UTC creation day. Cleanup is scheduled when that window closes; service outages may delay erasure. Later redeliveries cannot reopen the window. Uninstalling the app deletes the separate installation record and usage count, but does not immediately remove these short-lived receipts or the aggregate daily total. Daily aggregate totals may be retained indefinitely after receipts are erased.

Public Statistics

BugDrop may publish rounded, aggregate statistics such as:

  • Total GitHub App installations
  • Total feedback issues created

Public statistics are not broken down by installation and do not identify individual apps, repositories, or reporters.

Installation-level counts are private and will not be published or attributed to an app, account, organization, or repository without explicit permission from an authorized representative.

App Names, Logos, Links, and Testimonials

Installing or using BugDrop does not give BugDrop permission to publicly identify an app or organization.

BugDrop will display an app name, logo, link, quote, or testimonial only after receiving explicit permission from an authorized representative. That permission may be withdrawn at any time.

What BugDrop Does Not Collect for Analytics

BugDrop does not:

  • Track individual feedback reporters
  • Build profiles of reporters
  • Store feedback content or screenshots outside GitHub
  • Retain repository names for product analytics
  • Sell personal information
  • Share installation information for advertising
  • Use widget telemetry for cross-site tracking or fingerprinting

The widget does not set analytics cookies or use browser storage to track reporters.

Website Analytics

The bugdrop.dev marketing and documentation website uses limited analytics to understand page visits, referral sources, campaign attribution, interactions, and site performance.

Website analytics are separate from the BugDrop widget. The website stores a random analytics identifier and first-touch attribution information in browser storage. It may send query-free page paths and page locations, query-free referrer locations, coarse referrer and campaign categories, controlled interaction labels and destinations, and site-performance measurements to Google Analytics and PostHog. Raw query values and full referrer URLs are not included in BugDrop's custom analytics events. Those analytics are not connected to feedback content or reporter identities.

Google Analytics enhanced measurement is enabled for page views, scrolling, outbound links, embedded video engagement, file downloads, and form interactions. Automatic site search measurement is disabled so Google Analytics does not extract search terms from URL query parameters.

The analytics providers receive network information needed to process requests, including IP addresses. PostHog may use a client IP address temporarily for pre-storage processing, such as geolocation or bot detection, but the project is configured to discard the raw IP before storing the event.

The values stored by BugDrop in the browser do not currently expire automatically and remain until the visitor clears the site's browser data. Google Analytics and PostHog may set additional cookies or browser identifiers. Visitors can block browser storage or analytics requests using their browser or privacy tools. BugDrop does not currently offer a first-party analytics opt-out control.

Website analytics retention is described in the Retention section below.

Managed Account and Product Analytics

Customers who choose managed BugDrop create an account and configure applications, exact website origins, selected GitHub destinations, and server credentials. BugDrop retains that operational configuration while the managed account is active. For up to 30 days, BugDrop also retains a content-free, best-effort delivery activity record containing server-observed times, application and environment, configured origin and selected destination, normalized delivery state and reason, SDK/widget/protocol versions, processing duration, attachment presence and coarse size, replay count, a correlation ID, and a GitHub Issue number and URL only after confirmed delivery. Entries may be delayed or missing and are not billing-authoritative. Daily outcome aggregates are retained for up to 13 months, and typed credential and security activity is retained for up to 365 days.

The authenticated account interface sends explicit, allowlisted product events to PostHog. These events use a session-only random identifier that expires after 30 minutes of inactivity and no later than 24 hours after the session starts. Account events may include an enumerated page, setup step, action, and result. They do not include tenant, installation, repository, Issue, credential, email, submission, feedback, or end-user identifiers; free-form labels; query strings; or full URLs. Account routes do not send events to Google Analytics and are not joined to the website's persistent analytics identifier.

Where Feedback Data Goes

Feedback is sent to the GitHub API and created as a GitHub Issue in the repository configured by the site owner. Screenshots are stored in that repository's .bugdrop/ directory, and attachments are stored in .bugdrop/uploads/, on the bugdrop-screenshots branch. Included console logs are written into the GitHub Issue body.

The hosted BugDrop service runs on Cloudflare Workers and processes submissions in memory while communicating with GitHub.

Abuse Prevention and Operational Data

The hosted service temporarily stores rate-limit counters to prevent abuse:

  • A counter keyed by the raw client IP address expires 15 minutes after its most recent update.
  • A counter keyed by the destination repository name expires one hour after its most recent update.

These identifiers are used only to enforce submission limits and are not used for product analytics. Cloudflare may also temporarily process request and network metadata, including request paths, for service delivery, security, and operational logs.

To prevent successful feedback retries from being counted twice, the anonymous aggregate feedback counter and each installation feedback counter retain up to 1,024 recent random identifiers. The random deduplication identifiers contain no account, repository, Issue, reporter, feedback content, or timestamp information. Older identifiers are replaced as newer ones arrive. Aggregate identifiers may remain until replaced; per-installation identifiers are deleted with the installation counter when the app is uninstalled.

Retention

  • Feedback content is discarded by the hosted service after the GitHub request completes.
  • IP-based rate-limit records expire 15 minutes after their most recent update.
  • Repository-based rate-limit records expire one hour after their most recent update.
  • Installation records and their successful-feedback counts are retained while an installation is active and deleted when the app is uninstalled. A scheduled cleanup independently removes both records for installations GitHub no longer reports as active.
  • After uninstall, BugDrop retains a deletion guard derived from the GitHub App installation ID for up to seven days solely to prevent delayed submissions from recreating a usage count. The guard contains only an expiry time—no account, repository, Issue, reporter, or feedback content—and expires automatically.
  • Managed delivery activity is retained for up to 30 days, daily outcome aggregates for up to 13 months, and typed credential and security activity for up to 365 days. Managed account product analytics use session-only browser identifiers.
  • Deleted managed account data may remain in encrypted daily database backups for up to seven days and is physically erased as those backups expire.
  • Installation-completion deduplication receipts are scheduled for erasure 30 days after the end of the installation's UTC creation day, independently of uninstall. Service outages may delay cleanup. Daily aggregate completion totals may be retained indefinitely.
  • Anonymous aggregate totals may be retained indefinitely.
  • Testimonial and contact information provided with explicit permission is retained until that permission is withdrawn or the information is no longer needed.
  • Website analytics identifiers stored in the browser remain until the visitor clears the site's browser data.
  • Google Analytics retains identifier-associated event data for two months and user data for 14 months; the user-data period resets with new activity. Aggregated reporting is not governed by these settings.
  • PostHog reports an 84-month, plan-derived event-retention window, but automated enforcement is currently disabled. BugDrop therefore does not promise that PostHog event data will be automatically deleted after 84 months.

Service Providers

BugDrop relies on:

  • GitHub to host installations, Issues, and screenshot files
  • Cloudflare to operate the hosted API and deliver parts of bugdrop.dev
  • Vercel to deliver bugdrop.dev
  • Google Analytics and PostHog for website analytics, and PostHog for managed account product analytics
  • YouTube for the embedded demonstration video

Each provider processes information under its own privacy terms.

Self-Hosting

BugDrop is open source and self-hostable. Self-hosted installations control their own data processing, storage, logging, analytics, security, and retention practices. This policy does not govern independent self-hosted deployments. See Self-hosting documentation for instructions.

Your Choices

Installation owners may request access to, correction of, or deletion of their retained installation information. They may also decline outreach or withdraw permission to use their name, logo, link, or testimonial.

To make a privacy request, email [email protected].

Changes to This Policy

Material changes will be published before the related collection begins. The "Last updated" date will identify the latest revision.