Crunchyroll

Is Crunchyroll safe?

Mostly. Crunchyroll is a paid anime streaming service, so most of the risk that comes with social apps is missing: the catalogue is licensed and each title carries an age rating. We score it 56/100, below Netflix (65) and HBO Max (62).

Two things pull the score down. The app tracks you across other companies' apps, by its own App Store label. And in March 2026 a hacker walked off with millions of customer support tickets through an outside support company.

The March 2026 support ticket breach

The attack did not hit Crunchyroll's own servers. According to the hacker, who contacted BleepingComputer, they infected the computer of a support agent at Telus, the outsourcing firm that answers Crunchyroll's tickets, and used the agent's single sign-on login on 12 March. From there they say they downloaded 8 million tickets from Crunchyroll's Zendesk help desk, holding 6.8 million unique email addresses. They then demanded $5 million not to leak the data.

Samples seen by BleepingComputer contained the user's name, username, email address, IP address, rough location and the text of the ticket. Card details appeared only where customers had typed them into a ticket. On 23 March Crunchyroll told BleepingComputer it believed the information was "primarily limited to customer service ticket data following an incident with a third-party vendor" and that it had found no evidence of ongoing access to its systems. TechCrunch reported the confirmed breach the next day. The user count comes from the hacker and has not been confirmed by Crunchyroll.

The same weak point, a support vendor, exposed Discord users in 2025. For Crunchyroll customers the practical risk is phishing. Someone who knows your email and what you once complained about can write a very convincing fake support message.

A search of Crunchyroll's help centre for two-factorTwo-factor authenticationSigning in with a second proof of identity on top of your password, such as a code from an app, a security key or a passkey.More in the glossary login returns nothing, and we found no such option. Sony runs a vulnerability disclosure programme on HackerOne that covers Sony products and websites, but it pays no cash rewards.

What Crunchyroll tracks

Apple's label has a "Data Used to Track You" section listing location, identifiers and usage data. Linked to your identity are coarse location, email, user and device IDs, search history, product interaction and advertising data. On Android, Google Play says device IDs are shared with other companies for analytics and advertising.

Finding the policy behind this is harder than it should be. The privacy link on the App Store and website points to crunchyroll.com/privacy, which, from outside the US, redirects to a Sony Pictures international policy effective 27 July 2022. That policy never names Crunchyroll. It says Sony receives data from "third-party applications and data providers", lets other companies use tracking tools on its services for ads, and may turn your email address or phone number "into a unique value" to match you on social platforms for targeted ads. From the US, Internet Archive captures from August 2026 show the same link opening the Sony Pictures Entertainment US policy, effective 1 January 2026, which does not mention Crunchyroll either. It says Sony does not sell data for money, but shares identifiers, purchase records, online activity, geolocation and inferences with ad networks, social networks and analytics firms for targeted ads, which it says may count as a "sale" or "sharing" under US state laws.

Is Crunchyroll safe for teenagers?

Crunchyroll's answer is the teen profile, a separate profile that only plays titles at or below a set age rating, Ages 14 and up by default. The account holder can raise or lower the limit, and changing a profile's restrictions needs the account password. A 4-digit Profile PIN can lock any profile, including the adult one, on every Premium tier.

There are gaps. The main profile cannot be a teen profile, there is no kids mode with a separate catalogue, and anyone who knows the account password can change everything, so keep it to yourself. Much of the catalogue is aimed at older teens and adults, and the App Store rates the app 13+.

How to use Crunchyroll safely

1. Change your password if you have ever contacted Crunchyroll support, and change it anywhere else you reused it.
2. Treat any email about your account or an old support ticket with suspicion; open the app instead of clicking links.
3. Give teenagers a teen profile and put a PIN on the adult profile.
4. On iPhone, refuse the tracking prompt; on the web, use the cookie tool and the Do Not Sell or Share link.
5. Never type card numbers into a support ticket.

How we scored it

Regulatory record (86) is Crunchyroll's highest score, and scams and harmful content (74) comes next, thanks to licensed content and age-rated teen profiles. Privacy (45) is the weakest: the App Store label admits tracking, and the Sony policy behind the privacy link allows data from outside providers and ad matching. Security (48) reflects the March 2026 vendor breach and no two-step login. No regulator has fined Crunchyroll or ruled on the breach.