Privacy: we're built to know almost nothing about you
This site is designed so that we hold as little about you as possible.
Free pages and the defect checker: the checker runs entirely in your browser — your answers are never transmitted or stored. Pages log an anonymous pageview (path + referrer domain, and — when you arrived from a link we posted ourselves that carries a short lane tag such as ?s=yt — that tag, which tells us a video or a post sent somebody and nothing whatever about you). We keep no other part of the web address you arrived on: no campaign, no search term, no identifier. No cookies, no fingerprinting, no ad trackers, no analytics companies, and no third-party script of any kind — no page on this site, including the one that shows your lookup results, loads code from Google or from anybody else. Until September 9, 2026 one did: Google's publisher.js, which drew the “Add as Preferred Source” button. We removed it from all twelve page templates on that date rather than keep a button that made this sentence untrue; what replaced it is a plain link you click yourself. To stop a flood of junk pageviews and junk answers, the pageview log and the question box each count requests against a one-way cryptographic hash of the connecting IP address, computed inside the request and written nowhere — when the response is sent, the hash is gone. We hold no address and no hash of one.
The plate lookup (/lookup): we store nothing. Your plate is passed straight to the City of New York's public Open Data API and the answer is rendered back to you. It is never written to a database, never logged, never retained after the response, and never placed in a URL — the form is a POST specifically so the plate cannot end up in your browser history or in the Referer header of any link you click afterwards. The results page is served no-store and no-referrer. The only caching is a per-request in-memory de-duplication that is discarded when the response is sent. Our pageview log records the path "/lookup" and nothing else, plus, when the city actually answers, one timestamp with no plate, no address and no other field attached to it — that timestamp is the whole of the "plates checked in the last thirty days" count shown on the lookup page, and it is deleted automatically after forty days.
Keeping a lookup result at a link (/r/…): off unless you press the button, and it holds no plate. If you press "keep this result at a link" we save one page containing the violation types from your result and nothing else — no plate, no summons number, no amount, no date of your ticket, no name and nothing in the web address either. It is not possible for that page to hold anything you typed, because the only strings we keep are the violation names this site already publishes for everyone; anything else is discarded on arrival. The link is eight random letters, the page deletes itself ninety days after it is made, and it is indexable by search engines — which is the point of it. Email hello@getaxionlabs.com with those eight letters to have one removed sooner.
The Defense Pack: payment is processed entirely by Stripe — we never see your card. Your case answers are used once to generate your statement and stored only under an unguessable link so you can retrieve it; they are never sold, shared, or used for anything else. Email hello@getaxionlabs.com to have a case deleted.
The question at the foot of every page ("what did you come here to find out?"): we store what you type, the page you were on, and the time you sent it. On the pack page there is one more field: which of three words you picked about the price, if you picked one. That is the whole record. We do not ask for and do not store your name, your email address, your IP address, or your postal address, and the box is not tied to any account because there are none. Please leave your plate, your summons number and anything else that identifies you out of it — the box is for your question, not your case. Answers are kept for four months and then deleted automatically. If you want yours removed sooner, email hello@getaxionlabs.com and quote the words you typed: there is no self-service delete, and quoting the text is how we find it, because it is the only thing we hold.
The deadline reminder (the box on /lookup and /check): off unless you fill it in, and it is three fields. If you type an email address and the response date printed on your ticket, we store exactly that address, exactly that date, and which of the two pages you were on. Nothing else — no plate, no summons number, no amount, and none of the answers you gave the checker, which never leave your browser in the first place. We send one email, three days before that date, and then the row is deleted; there is no second email, no newsletter, and no list you are on. Every one of those emails carries a one-click link that deletes the row immediately, the same link is on the screen the moment you set it, and the row deletes itself automatically a month after the date whatever happens. We do not sell it, share it, or use it for anything else, and there is nothing else it could be used for.
The “did it work?” question after a Defense Pack purchase: a count, and only a count. Roughly six weeks after a purchase we send one email with three links — dismissed, reduced, paid. Each opens a page with one button, and pressing it adds one to a running total. There is no text box, and what we keep is a number. Nothing ties an answer to you, to your purchase, to your email address or to your ticket, and there is deliberately nowhere in that record to put any of them. It is the last email a purchase creates.
No accounts. We don't want your password, your license number, or your identity.
There is a person behind this page, and it is me. If anything here is wrong, out of date, or reads like it was written by a machine that has never been ticketed, email me — when I change something I say so on the page. One person reads that mail and answers it; expect a reply within a few days. Whatever you decide about your ticket, disputing it is free at nyc.gov — Dispute a ticket, and you never need us, or anyone, to do it for you.