bbc.com recorded 21 fewer third-party requests in the visit configured for Brave-list blocking.
The visit with no blocking made 142 requests; the visit configured to apply Brave's ad-block engine and default Shields filter lists (a simulation in this scanner's browser, not a live Brave-browser visit) recorded 21 fewer third-party requests. The blocker directly stopped 19 requests; the remaining difference may include follow-on requests that never started once their sources were blocked, plus run-to-run variance.
The scan observed signals a non-expert should not have to decode from raw request tables.
The cards below translate the evidence into plain language. Where a measured distribution exists, severity ranks this visit against percentiles from this report's cohort, with each percentile card naming its metric-specific measured-site denominator; otherwise it uses fixed reference thresholds. That cohort is drawn from a curated set of popular, mostly commercial sites, not a random sample of the web. The request log, domain table, and methodology remain below for verification.
142 requests observed in one controlled visit.
Worth checking
17 requests matched Brave Shields filter lists
17 requests matched the default filter lists of Brave Shields, the ad and tracker blocker built into the Brave browser, while loading normally.
Computed with Brave's own ad-block engine and default filter lists in classification mode: matched requests were not blocked by the scanner and remain in this report's observed request counts. Matching shows what Shields would target on this visit's traffic; an actual Shields visit blocks these and also prevents their follow-on requests, so this number is neither a measured block count nor the total effect.
The hand-curated service catalog separately matched 4 request rows in this visit.Show matched requests
Context
Mixed changes observed in the Brave-list blocking attempt
The blocking visit ran with the scanner configured to apply Brave's ad-block engine and default Shields filter lists. It was a simulation in this scanner's browser, not a live Brave-browser visit, and application was not verified. Compared with the unblocked visit, it showed 21 fewer third-party requests, 3 fewer third-party cookies and 1 more tracking-related service request.
The blocking visit's engine directly blocked 19 requests. Ad rotation, experiments, or caching between the two visits can offset or outweigh what blocking removed, which is how totals can hold steady or rise despite direct blocks. A single paired comparison can also reflect run-to-run variance (ad rotation, caching, experiments), so treat this as an observed difference, not a measured blocking rate.
Signed per-metric differences between the two visits; nothing is summed across metrics.Show matched requests
Worth checking
1 first-party DNS alias matched tracking checks
1 resolved target matched Brave filter lists; those matches do not identify the operators.
The scanner followed DNS CNAME chains from first-party subdomains and checked resolved targets against the service catalog and Brave filter lists. These matches do not establish a request's purpose, profiling, or an intent to conceal tracking. A filter-list match alone is not a verified service identity or proof of tracking.
Privacy policy read; it made no statement this scan can check
None of the statements this scan knows how to check appear in the policy text, so nothing was compared against this visit's evidence (no catalogued tracking companies observed to check against it). That is a limit of the automated check, not a finding about the site either way.
Statements checked automatically: blanket no-cookie claims, third-party-cookie claims, and combined do-not-sell-or-share claims against advertising-pixel identifier fields. Global Privacy Control claims are never checked against request counts, which cannot show whether selling or sharing stopped.
Policy at https://www.bbc.com/…/privacy-policy; 0 checkable statements matched; no catalogued tracking companies observed to check against it.
Context
Identified services have unclassified functional roles
The catalog identified Optimizely, but its read-time role taxonomy leaves at least one category unclassified and assigns that service no tracking-related role.
Identification and functional classification are separate. An unclassified role is not evidence that a service was harmless, but it is also not a basis for calling the service tracking-related. This scan could not identify 9 of the 12 third-party hosts recorded here, so it cannot say who operates them. That is a limit of identity coverage, not evidence about the site.
132 cross-site requests across 12 third-party hosts.At or above the median for third-party domains across the 90 sites measured for this metric.Show third-party requests
Not flagged
No requests to major-platform domains were recorded
No requests to catalogued Google, Meta, TikTok, X, Microsoft, LinkedIn, or Pinterest domains were observed in this visit.
Major-platform domains were not observed in this single passive visit; interaction-gated requests could still load for real users.
The scanner observed cookie metadata whose domain crossed the scanned site's registrable-domain boundary. This report does not retain cookie values or partition keys, so it does not establish whether a cookie was a persistent identifier or could recognize a visitor across sites.
18 cookies total in this report.At or above the median for third-party cookies across the 90 sites measured for this metric.
Context
Input-monitoring signal involving a third-party script
Listener coverage that could observe typing-related input events was registered through call chains that included a third-party script.
This is a behavioral instrumentation signal from listener registration, stack-attributed script origins, and known-vendor requests: it shows the page was instrumented to observe interaction, not that anything was transmitted. Stack attribution records the script origins present in the bounded registration call chain. A cross-site origin in that chain does not by itself establish that the cross-site script registered the listener. That is because first-party code can register its own listeners through a helper served from elsewhere. A different registrable domain is also not by itself a different operator: sites commonly serve their own scripts from a separate asset domain. The card therefore says third party only when the catalog or reviewed ownership attributes an origin to another organization. On scanners that run the active keystroke-capture probe, actual transmission is tested separately (a synthetic value is typed, never real input, and no typed values are collected). Treat this card as a review prompt rather than proof.
Session-recording listener coverage: 223 interaction-listener registrations with https://cdn.optimizely.com/, https://cdn.tinypass.com/ and https://static.files.bbci.co.uk/, plus 1 other in the registration call chain. Input-monitoring listener coverage: 88 input-listener registrations with https://static.files.bbci.co.uk/ in the registration call chain.
Not flagged
No fingerprint-like API calls observed
The scan did not observe the instrumented high-entropy browser APIs.
This is an observation layer, not proof that fingerprinting is impossible.
0 API families recorded.
Raw evidence
Open the interactive evidence explorer
The findings above are built from the stored report. Load the request rows, domains, cookies, storage keys, browser signals, visit phases, charts and CSV export when you want to check them; the versioned report JSON is always available below without this interface.
This versioned report is currently retained in the public corpus. Follow the currently retained site history, repeat the same public route when it is available, or request a transparent evidence correction.
Exact build and instrument digests were not recorded by this legacy schema.
Variant visit
Started
Run quality
complete; derived from status and warnings
Scanner
playwright-chromium
Browser
153.0.8010.12
Redaction
not recorded by this schema
Provenance
Exact build and instrument digests were not recorded by this legacy schema.
Recorded provenance is self-reported measurement metadata, not a cryptographic attestation. The public versioned report JSON contains the retained public evidence; see the methodology for interpretation and retention limits.
This report covers what the scanner measures, not everything a site can do. 17 browser surfaces are not instrumented at all (Every page except the one that was scanned; Anything that only loads after scrolling or interaction; Why a request happened, as a causal chain; and 14 others), 3 capabilities are declined by policy, and 3 are outside what any single visit can see. Their absence from this report is not evidence that they did not occur. Read the published coverage boundary.
Detector accuracy is unmeasured. No calibration study currently publishes a precision or recall for the detectors on this page, so a detector match here is a recorded observation, not a calibrated classification. A study has been recorded for pixel-events and does not support a published rate under the current build. How detector accuracy is measured.
Severity percentiles come from this report's exact schema, methodology, tracker-catalog, ServiceRole-taxonomy, metric-contract, producer, and Global Privacy Control cohort. Each percentile card's measured sites are among 99 sites with a successful load across all cohorts. Other methodologies, request-capped visits, and post-choice consent visits are excluded from each card's denominator, while failed or block-page attempts are outside that coverage.
Approved use boundary: This report is investigative evidence that requires independent corroboration. It is not a standalone legal determination and not the sole exhibit in a legal proceeding. Recorded in this project's release manifest on .