Elevated privacy

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Overview

The Elevated section (safesquid-elevated(5)) reduces cross-site tracking by stripping third-party cookies and selected tracking headers. Without it, third-party cookies and related trackers can follow users from site to site.

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Core Mechanics (C++ Source Validation)

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First match wins

On each request and response header pass, enabled Elevated policy rows are walked top to bottom. The first matching row sets the privacy level for that connection; later rows are skipped.

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Privacy levels (action field)

• NOT-REQUIRED — No stripping; bypass elevated privacy.
• LOW — Drop third-party Cookie and Set-Cookie when cookie flag set.
• STANDARD — LOW plus remove Referer and Origin on outgoing requests.
• PARANOID — STANDARD plus remove User-Agent (may break browser-variant sites).

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Logging

Changes logged to privacy log and Detailed logs with filter name Elevated-Privacy. Debug header X-Elevated-Privacy reports level when Send Debugging Headers includes client.

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Processing flow

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Schema Fields

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Global fields

• Enabled (enabled) — Master switch. When off, processors exit without header changes.

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Policy rows

• Profiles (profiles) — Limit privacy level to tagged connections. Blank matches all.
• Privacy Levels (action) — NOT-REQUIRED, LOW, STANDARD, or PARANOID.
• Comment (comment) — Operator note only.

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Examples

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Standard privacy for all

• Configuration: One row Profiles blank, Privacy Levels STANDARD.
• Result: third-party cookies dropped; Referer and Origin removed on requests for all matching connections.

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Paranoid for guests, bypass for staff

• Configuration: Row A Profiles STAFF NOT-REQUIRED; Row B blank PARANOID.
• Result: staff keep full headers; others get paranoid stripping.

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Cookie-only for marketing

• Configuration: Profiles MARKETING USERS, Privacy Levels LOW.
• Result: only third-party cookies stripped; Referer and User-Agent remain.

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Recommended practice

• Start with LOW or STANDARD before PARANOID — removing User-Agent breaks some applications.
• Place NOT-REQUIRED bypass rows above broad PARANOID rows.

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How to verify

1. Browse multi-site flow; inspect request headers upstream of proxy.
2. Check privacy.log under Reports.
3. Enable elevated log level for native privacy lines.
4. Debug header X-Elevated-Privacy on client when configured.