Warden Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 28, 2026

Overview

Warden is a browser privacy extension developed by AeThex. It detects and redacts supported sensitive-data patterns, warns about risky form and clipboard content, and provides user-initiated password-exposure and URL-intelligence checks. This policy explains what Warden processes, what leaves the browser, and the controls available to you.

Data Warden Processes Locally

The following information is processed on your device to provide Warden's features:

• Page and form content: Supported patterns in page text and form content may be detected locally so Warden can highlight findings or warn you.
• Selected and clipboard text: Text is processed locally when you invoke a selection or clipboard scrub action.
• Password entered into Password Exposure Check: The password is hashed locally and is not stored.
• Settings and custom patterns: Preferences, per-site choices, and custom detection patterns are stored in chrome.storage.local.
• Activity history: Up to 100 records describing Warden actions and finding counts are stored locally. Sensitive page, form, clipboard, password, and URL values are not written to this history.

Information Sent Off the Device

• Password exposure checks: Only the first five characters of the password's SHA-1 hash are sent over HTTPS to AeThex. AeThex relays that prefix to the Pwned Passwords k-anonymity service. The password and complete hash are never transmitted.
• URL Intelligence: Only a public HTTP(S) URL that you explicitly enter and submit is sent over HTTPS to AeThex and Google Safe Browsing. Warden does not automatically submit visited pages or browsing history.
• Network metadata: AeThex hosting infrastructure may process standard request metadata such as IP address, timestamp, route, and user agent for security and service operation. Request bodies are not included in standard web access logs.

Information Warden Does Not Transmit

• Page or form content
• Selected or clipboard text
• Browsing history
• Passwords or complete password hashes
• Settings, custom patterns, per-site choices, or local activity history

Data Storage

Settings, custom patterns, per-site choices, and activity history are stored locally on your device using chrome.storage.local. Warden 2.2 does not require an AeThex account and does not store authentication tokens.

Third-Party Services

Warden communicates with https://aethex.bot only for:

• Privacy-preserving password exposure checks using a five-character SHA-1 prefix
• User-initiated URL threat checks through Google Safe Browsing

No user information is sold or used for advertising, credit decisions, or unrelated analytics. AeThex does not permit humans to read transmitted user content except when required for security, legal compliance, or support explicitly requested by the user.

Limited Use

Warden's use of information received from Chrome APIs adheres to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Information is used only to provide or improve Warden's disclosed privacy-protection features.

Data Retention

• Activity history is limited to 100 entries and stored locally.
• Password values and complete hashes are not retained.
• Submitted URLs are not stored by Warden or written to AeThex application logs. Third-party providers may process requests under their own policies.
• Chrome removes extension-local storage when you uninstall the extension.

Your Rights

You can:

• Review local activity history within the extension.
• Disable notifications, automatic status refreshes, highlights, and protection for individual sites.
• Avoid the optional online checks; they run only after you submit a password or URL.
• Clear Warden's storage through Chrome or uninstall the extension to delete its local data.

Security

We implement security best practices including:

• HTTPS for all network communication
• K-anonymous password-exposure lookups
• Local and private URL rejection
• Request rate limiting and provider timeouts
• No remotely executed code

Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Significant changes will be communicated through extension updates.