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Security & Compliance

Architecture, Privacy Audits & GDPR Compliance Standards

Unlike traditional PDF utility platforms, PDFCraft is built around an uncompromising security principle: we never see, touch, or upload your files. All document editing, merging, splitting, and signing tasks run 100% client-side on your local device.

1. Zero-Server Architecture

Standard online PDF tools force you to upload your files to their backend servers. This exposes confidential information to risk of interception, unauthorized database logging, or security leaks. PDFCraft completely eliminates this threat vector by removing the server from the loop entirely.

Technical Flow Overview

You select a file → the browser reads it locally via the File API → pdf-lib and pdf.js modify the document in your tab's memory → the result is handed straight back to you as a browser download. Your file's contents generate zero network traffic at every step.

2. What does leave your browser

Being precise about this matters more to us than sounding absolute. Your documents never leave your device. The web page, like most sites, does load third-party code:

As of August 2026 the PDF libraries are no longer among them. pdf.js, pdf-lib, JSZip and the icon set are all served from this domain rather than from jsDelivr or unpkg, at pinned versions. That removes three third parties from the code path that handles your documents and passwords, and it means an upstream CDN cannot change the code running on your file without a deploy from us.

Neither of them receives your file, its contents, or any password you enter — there is no code path in this site that transmits them. There is no advertising code on the site at all. If you would rather not send analytics, block third-party scripts or use a tracker blocker: every tool keeps working, because the PDF work does not depend on it. The web fonts come from a stylesheet rather than a script, so blocking fonts.googleapis.com is a separate step; the pages then fall back to a system typeface.

3. Why this helps with GDPR

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), sending files containing personally identifiable information (PII) to a third-party processor pulls that processor into your compliance scope — contracts, audits, transfer assessments. PDFCraft removes that step entirely:

To be clear about what that does and does not mean: it removes a processor from your document workflow. It is not a compliance certification, and we are not in a position to offer one — if your organisation requires a formal assessment, treat this page as technical documentation for your own review, not as legal advice.

4. Handling PHI and privileged documents

For medical and legal professionals, uploading Protected Health Information or privileged material to a third-party platform is often prohibited outright by policy or contract. Because PDFCraft behaves like locally installed software rather than a service, that upload never happens:

Whether that satisfies a specific obligation — including whether any agreement is required in your situation — is a determination for your own compliance officer, not for us. We will not tell you that you are HIPAA compliant; we will tell you exactly what the software does so you can decide.

5. Offline use (PWA)

PDFCraft installs as a Progressive Web App, and the tools themselves need no server to run — the processing genuinely happens on your CPU.

You do not have to take that on trust, and this is the easiest claim on the page to check: open a tool, turn off your wifi, and use it.

6. Cryptographic Protection

Passwords are typed and processed entirely inside your browser, so they are never sent over the network. The specifics, since a vague claim here would be worse than none: