Gateway is designed to be private by default. No accounts, no tracking, no data collection.
Gateway has no accounts, backend database, advertising profile, or analytics script. Search terms are processed in your browser against the local index. When live discovery is enabled by a search, the relevant subject is sent to the public Wikipedia or Wikidata API so Gateway can return current article context, structured facts, and cited links. Those requests are subject to the providers' own policies.
If you open the Images tab, the search terms are also sent to the public Wikimedia Commons and Openverse APIs to find openly licensed images, and your browser then loads the matching thumbnails directly from Wikimedia or from the site that hosts the image, such as Flickr. Only the search terms are sent; Gateway never uploads anything. Those requests are likewise subject to each provider's own policies.
Gateway uses your browser's localStorage and IndexedDB to remember language and dark-mode preferences, record your search history, cache recent searches for up to ten minutes, and store the bundled or uploaded index. This data stays in your browser unless you clear site data.
Each search you run is saved locally as the query, the time, the number of results and how long the search took. The history page lists them so you can replay or delete them. Your history is never uploaded, never attached to a search, and never included in an exported or custom index. It is not used to build a profile, rank content, or improve results — deleting it changes nothing about how Gateway ranks.
Recording is on by default and keeps the most recent 200 searches. You can turn off new recordings with the switch on the history page, delete a single search or the whole list at any time, and clearing your browser's site data removes it entirely. Because the list is stored only in this browser, it does not follow you to another browser, device, or profile.
Search results can include official websites and external links cited by Wikipedia. Images shown in the Images tab come from Wikimedia Commons and Openverse, and the image files are fetched from Wikimedia or from whichever site hosts the original, so those hosts see the request for their image. Gateway does not crawl or submit data to those destination sites when it displays a result. If you follow a result, the destination may have its own cookies, privacy policy, and tracking practices.
Every image is shown with its source and licence so you can check how it may be reused and where it came from.
Gateway does not set its own cookies. Third-party services reached through a result or a public API may set their own cookies under their own policies.