We’ve just made an important update to how site validation reports work on Rocket Validator: all reports are now private by default. While it’s still easy to share them when you want to, having the report UUID is no longer sufficient to view a report.
How reports worked before
Until now, validation reports created with Rocket Validator could be shared with anyone just by passing them the URL of the report. As the ID was a long UUID (like f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479), it would be practically impossible for someone to see a report unless you shared its URL with them.
The reports themselves don’t contain any private or sensitive data - they simply show the accessibility and HTML validation issues found by the W3C Validator and axe-core on the pages of your website. However, some users prefer to keep their validation reports more discreet, especially when working with clients or internal projects.
Easy sharing when you need it
Making reports private by default doesn’t make sharing any more complicated when you actually want to share them. The sharing options remain as straightforward as before - the only difference is that sharing now requires your explicit action rather than happening automatically.
This change gives you better control over your validation reports while maintaining the flexibility to share them easily when needed. Whether you’re working on internal projects that should stay confidential or client work that requires discretion, you can now validate your sites with peace of mind.
How to create a shared report
When you run a new site validation report, making it shareable is as easy as checking the Shared Report option:
Any report that you have created can have this option enabled or disabled afterwards. So if you forgot to set this option, or you did so but you changed your mind, you can find the following Sharing box in the report summary:
These controls let you define if the report can be shared or not; if sharing is enabled, you’ll see the public URL that you can copy and share with anyone to access the report without needing to sign up for a Rocket Validator account:
What about scheduled reports?
Scheduled reports give you the same option: if a schedule is configured to create shared reports, all reports created when that schedule runs will automatically have the sharing option enabled.
Security and privacy benefits
This change enhances your privacy by:
- Preventing accidental exposure: Reports can no longer be accessed by anyone who might guess or stumble upon the URL
- Better client confidentiality: When working with clients, you have control over who can see validation results
- Compliance friendly: Helps organizations that need to maintain strict data access controls
The sharing mechanism remains as simple as before - the only difference is that it now requires your intentional action rather than being enabled by default.