Updated every 5 minutes — 300+ VPN providers tracked

Privacy Detection

Detect VPNs, proxies, Tor exit nodes, and datacenter IPs in real time. Named service identification, residential vs. datacenter classification, and a false positive rate under 0.1%.

Get Free API Key Try Live Demo

300+

VPN providers

<0.1%

False positive rate

5 min

Update interval

Real-time

Tor exit nodes

Overview

What is Privacy Detection?

Privacy Detection identifies whether an IP address belongs to a known anonymization service — VPNs, open proxies, Tor exit nodes, Apple Private Relay, or datacenter hosting — before a user ever interacts with your platform.

Unlike simple IP blocklists, HostInfo's privacy detection combines live threat feeds, BGP classification, and named service matching to give you a multi-signal verdict with sub-millisecond latency.

Named VPN service identification (e.g. "NordVPN", "ExpressVPN")
Live Tor exit node detection (updated in real time)
Residential vs. datacenter vs. mobile classification
Apple iCloud Private Relay detection

Sample Response

{
  "ip": "104.28.0.1",
  "vpn": true,
  "proxy": false,
  "tor": false,
  "relay": false,
  "hosting": true,
  "service": "Cloudflare WARP",
  "type": "hosting"
}

Capabilities

Key Features

Industry-leading anonymization detection with named service coverage.

300+ VPN Providers Tracked

Our database covers all major commercial VPN providers including NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark, Mullvad, ProtonVPN, and hundreds more — with named identification per IP.

Real-Time Tor Exit Nodes

Our Tor detection is updated in real time from the official Tor Project consensus list, catching new exit nodes as they come online without any delay.

Residential vs. Datacenter

Every IP is classified as residential, datacenter, or mobile. Datacenter traffic carries significantly higher fraud risk, letting you apply tiered trust policies.

Named Anonymizer ID

When an IP belongs to a known service, we return the service name. Know exactly whether you're looking at Cloudflare WARP, Mullvad, or Apple iCloud Private Relay.

False Positive Rate < 0.1%

Precision-tuned to avoid flagging legitimate users. Our detection engine combines multiple data sources and confidence scoring to minimize false positives.

Updated Every 5 Minutes

VPN exit IP ranges rotate frequently. Our detection database refreshes every 5 minutes to catch newly provisioned exit nodes and freshly rotated IP pools.

Reference

Data Fields

Every field returned by the Privacy Detection API.

Field	Type	Description	Free	Pro	Max
vpn	boolean	True if the IP is a known VPN exit node	✓	✓	✓
proxy	boolean	True if the IP is a known open or anonymous proxy	✓	✓	✓
tor	boolean	True if the IP is an active Tor exit node	✓	✓	✓
relay	boolean	True if the IP belongs to Apple iCloud Private Relay or similar relay service	✓	✓	✓
hosting	boolean	True if the IP belongs to a datacenter or hosting provider	✓	✓	✓
service	string	Named VPN or anonymization service (e.g. "NordVPN", "Mullvad")	—	✓	✓
type	string	IP connection type: residential / datacenter / mobile / satellite	—	✓	✓

Try It Now

Live Demo

Enter any IP address to check for VPN, proxy, or Tor activity.

Try:

// Click "Check IP" to see privacy detection results...

Applications

Use Cases

Privacy detection powers security decisions across every industry.

🚨

Prevent Fraud

Fraudsters consistently use VPNs and proxies to bypass geographic restrictions and hide their real location. Detect anonymized connections before they complete a transaction or account action.

🗺️

Enforce Geo-Restrictions

Licensing agreements and regulatory requirements demand that content is served only in permitted regions. VPN detection is the critical layer that prevents geo-restriction bypass.

🤖

Block Account Abuse

Multi-accounting, credential stuffing, and promo abuse attacks frequently originate from VPN or datacenter IPs. Flag or challenge these sessions to protect your platform integrity.

Developer

API Example

One call returns all privacy signals. Integrate in minutes.

curl -X GET \
  "https://api.hostinfo.com/v1/ip/104.28.0.1/privacy" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

# Response:
{
  "ip": "104.28.0.1",
  "vpn": true,
  "proxy": false,
  "tor": false,
  "service": "Cloudflare WARP",
  "type": "hosting"
}

const res = await fetch(
  'https://api.hostinfo.com/v1/ip/104.28.0.1/privacy',
  { headers: { 'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY' } }
);
const data = await res.json();
if (data.vpn || data.tor || data.proxy) {
  console.log('Anonymized connection detected');
  console.log('Service:', data.service); // "Cloudflare WARP"
}

import requests

r = requests.get(
    "https://api.hostinfo.com/v1/ip/104.28.0.1/privacy",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"}
)
data = r.json()
if data["vpn"] or data["tor"]:
    print(f"Blocked: {data['service']}")