Privacy Policy for SidePDF
Last updated: July 28, 2026
This policy covers SidePDF, published on the Chrome Web Store as PDF Note Taker & Annotator – Margin Notes, Highlight ("the Extension").
Summary
SidePDF does not collect, transmit, sell or share any personal data. There are no servers, no accounts and no analytics. Your PDFs and everything you write on them stay on your own computer.
What the extension accesses
The PDF you open. To display and annotate a document, the Extension reads that file — either from your disk, or by requesting it from the website you navigated to, exactly as your browser would have done anyway. The document is never sent to the developer or to any third party, because the Extension has nowhere to send it: it makes no network requests other than retrieving the PDF you asked to view.
Page addresses, momentarily. To know when to open its viewer, the Extension checks whether a page you navigate to is a PDF. This check happens on your device as the navigation occurs. Addresses are not recorded, stored or transmitted, and no browsing history is collected.
A file you choose to save to. If you use Save, the Extension writes the annotated PDF back to a file you select through Chrome's own file picker. It remembers your choice so later saves go to the same file. It cannot read or write any other file on your system.
What is stored on your device
Everything below lives in your browser's own storage, on your computer, and is never uploaded:
| Stored | Where | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Your annotations — ink, highlights, arrows, boxes, typed notes, page margins | IndexedDB (infinite-margin-pdf) | So your work reappears when you reopen the same document |
| Images you insert | IndexedDB | Same |
| A reference to the file you chose to save to | IndexedDB | So repeat saves overwrite the same file instead of creating copies |
| A flag recording that you have seen the welcome tour | Local storage (pdfnt.onboarded.v1) | So the tour is not shown every time |
Annotations are matched to a document by a fingerprint calculated from the file's own contents. The fingerprint is derived and used entirely on your device.
What the extension does not do
- No data of any kind is sent to the developer or to third parties.
- No analytics, telemetry, tracking pixels, advertising or fingerprinting.
- No accounts, registration, sign-in or email collection.
- No browsing history collection or profiling.
- No remote code: every library ships inside the extension package, and nothing is downloaded or executed from the internet at runtime.
Permissions and why each is needed
| Permission | Reason |
|---|---|
declarativeNetRequest | Redirects PDF links to the Extension's own viewer. A single static rule; no other traffic is read, blocked or modified. |
tabs | Chrome's redirect API cannot match local file:// addresses, so the Extension detects those navigations here. Also used to open the viewer from the toolbar icon and to open the Extension's own settings page. |
unlimitedStorage | Handwriting and inserted images can exceed the small default storage quota. All of it stays on your device. |
| Access to all sites | The viewer must be able to read whichever PDF you open, and a PDF can be hosted anywhere. It is used for nothing else — no other page content is read. |
Your data is yours
All data is held locally. To delete it:
- Remove the Extension, or
- Clear its site data via
chrome://settings/content/all.
Either permanently deletes every stored annotation. Nothing is stored elsewhere, so there is nothing for the developer to delete on your behalf. PDFs you have already saved to disk are ordinary files and are unaffected.
Children's privacy
The Extension collects no data from any user, including children under 13.
Changes to this policy
Any future version will be published at this same address with an updated date above. Material changes will also be noted in the Extension's Chrome Web Store listing.
Contact
Questions about this policy: support@jotlayer.com