Our ongoing commitment to privacy for the 1.1.1.1 public DNS resolver (opens in new tab)

Cloudflare reports that an independent Big Four accounting firm has confirmed its 1.1.1.1 public DNS resolver continues to meet its privacy commitments. The review was conducted because Cloudflare’s DNS infrastructure has expanded and become more complex since the previous examination in 2020. Cloudflare says it aims to make privacy the default and encourages other public DNS providers to undergo similar independent reviews.

Renewed Independent Privacy Examination

• Cloudflare launched 1.1.1.1 in 2018 as a fast, privacy-focused DNS resolver.
• A first independent review took place in 2020.
• After major changes to its technology stack and DNS platform, Cloudflare commissioned the same accounting firm to conduct another examination.
• The latest review examined evidence collected after the 2024 calendar year and took several months to complete.
• The resulting report is available through Cloudflare’s compliance resources.

Confirmed Privacy Commitments

The examination confirmed that:

• Cloudflare does not sell or share public resolver users’ personal data with third parties.
• Resolver data is not used to target users with advertisements.
• Cloudflare retains or uses the requested DNS information, rather than information identifying the person making the request.
• Source IP addresses are anonymized and deleted within 25 hours.
• DNS query information is not combined with other Cloudflare or third-party data in a way that could identify individual users.

Limited Network Troubleshooting Data

• Cloudflare may use randomly sampled network packets for troubleshooting and attack mitigation.
• These samples represent no more than 0.05% of total traffic.
• The samples can include the querying IP address, but are used solely for operational security and network reliability purposes.

Scope of the Latest Review

• Unlike the broader 2020 examination, the latest review focused exclusively on privacy commitments.
• The earlier review also covered how Cloudflare handled anonymized transaction and debug logs, known as “Public Resolver Logs.”
• Cloudflare says the use of those logs has evolved, including supporting services such as Cloudflare Radar.
• The company maintains that these changes do not affect personal information or user privacy.

Cloudflare’s practical position is that 1.1.1.1 users should not have to trust privacy promises alone: independent examinations should verify them. It recommends reviewing the published accountant’s report and continues to present 1.1.1.1 as a privacy-first DNS option.