Why do I see scans and requests from countries in my statistics where I did not publish the QR Code?

When you create a trackable QR Code, we identify a QR Code scan by the device's IP address and the user agent sent by the device. There are different possibilities, why a QR Code incorrectly shows up from a different country.

The device is behind a proxy. For example Blackberry devices are routing all their Internet traffic through the U.S. or there is a new function for Apple devices to hide their identidy by using a private VPN. Proxies and VPNs can have an IP address that is from a differnet country than the person's original device.

Normally we filter out bot requests and your QR Codes are not public by default. However, if a Bot is sending a regular user agent string (like an Apple iPhone does) we cannot distinguish between a real iPhone and the Bot.

Another possibility that requests show up from a different country is that the URL might have been shared through Facebook, WhatsApp, WeChat or other social media platforms by the user or the app after scanning. You can have a look on the Referred section of the statistic page for more details.

We are looking up IP addresses to their countries with the service of maxmind. Even they claim there is a 99,8% accuracy on country level, there is a chance that the IP address is assigned to the wrong country and therefore will display you the wrong information. After looking up the country we store the IP address anonymously to be fully GDPR/CCPA compliant.

The most accurate results you get, when you enable the GPS tracking function for QR Codes.