Why it matters
Privacy laws in the UK, the EU, California, Canada, Brazil, Australia and elsewhere all expect you to tell people what you collect, why, who you share it with and how to reach you. A missing policy is easy to spot and hard to explain, especially when your site plainly sends data to other companies.
How Patch checks
We look for links with words like "privacy" or "data protection" on every page we crawl, then try common paths such as /privacy and /privacy-policy. A page counts if it loads and reads like a policy rather than a placeholder.
How to fix it
- Write a privacy policy that covers what you collect, why, the legal basis, how long you keep it, who you share it with and how people can contact you.
- Name every outside service your site uses. Patch found.
- Link it from the footer of every page and next to every form that asks for personal details.
- Put the date you last updated it at the top.
Your own report goes further: it names the exact pages, services and settings Patch found on your site, and with a full report you get a fix prompt to paste into Lovable, Bolt or Cursor.
Where this applies
Needed almost everywhere a site collects personal data. Some laws only apply above size thresholds (California, Australia), which is why parts of this may show as "may apply".