Privacy Policy

This policy explains what information PlainVIN handles and why. Short version: you don’t need an account, we don’t save the VINs you decode to a database, and your saved cars stay in your own browser.

PlainVIN (“we”, “us”) runs plainvin.com. You can reach us about anything in this policy through our contact form.

VINs you decode

When you decode a VIN, we send it to NHTSA’s public vPIC service to get the vehicle’s specs. We don’t save the VIN to a database, an account or our page cache. Because the VIN is part of the result page’s address (/vin/…/), it can appear in our web host’s standard server logs, which are kept for a limited period for security and reliability only. To make repeat lookups faster, we cache NHTSA’s response for the first 11 characters of the VIN, which describe the model rather than the individual vehicle, for 30 days. VIN result pages are excluded from search engines.

My Garage

Vehicles you save to My Garage are stored only in your browser (local storage) on that device. We never receive them. To show whether a new recall campaign has been listed, the My Garage page asks our server for the latest campaign date for each saved year, make and model; no VIN is sent. Clearing your browser’s site data deletes your garage.

Contact messages

If you use our contact form, we store your message, the topic, the page you mention and, if you give it, the email address you want a reply to. We use them only to answer you and fix errors, and we delete messages after 90 days. We don’t store your IP address with the message; a one-way hash of it is kept for an hour to limit spam.

“Was this useful?” answers

We store the page address, your yes/no answer and the date. Nothing that identifies you.

Advertising and cookies

When ads are switched on, they’re served by Google AdSense, which may use cookies or similar technologies to show and measure ads, subject to your consent where the law requires it. Where required, you’ll see a consent message from Google’s certified consent platform, and you can change your choice at any time with the “Privacy choices” link at the bottom of every page. Google’s use of data is described in How Google uses information from sites that use its services.

Your theme choice (light or dark) is saved in your browser so the site remembers it.

Hosting and logs

Our web host keeps standard server logs (such as IP address, browser type and the page requested) for security and reliability, for a limited period.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct or delete personal information we hold about you, or to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. We don’t sell personal information. To make a request, use the contact form and choose “Privacy request”.

Children

PlainVIN is a general-audience reference site and isn’t directed at children under 13.

Privacy choices

Use the “Privacy choices” link in the footer to review or change your ad-consent choices. If it doesn’t open a dialog, ads aren’t active on the site yet and no ad cookies are set.

Changes

We’ll update this page when our practices change and show the date at the top.