How It Works
Understand the security and automation driving our visa alert tracking system.
1. Passwordless Secure Login
We use Firebase passwordless email authentication. When you request access, we email you a unique sign-in link. Clicking the link verifies your email address and logs you in securely without needing passwords.
2. Cryptographic Reference Hashing
We prioritize your privacy. We never store your cleartext application reference number in our databases.
When you enter your reference number:
- We normalize the number by trimming whitespace, uppercasing, and removing non-alphanumeric characters.
- We pass it to a secure Firebase Cloud Function.
- The function computes a cryptographic HMAC-SHA256 signature using a secret key stored inside Google Cloud Secret Manager.
- We save only the hashed signature and the last 4 digits (so you can identify your subscription).
3. Embassy Spreadsheet Scraper
The Irish Embassy page states that it publishes a cumulative visa-outcome spreadsheet each morning at approximately 11:00 AM Indian Standard Time (IST).
Our automated scheduler runs at:
During each run, our system fetches the Embassy decisions page, finds the latest ODS link, downloads the spreadsheet, computes the file's SHA-256 hash (skipping already imported files), parses the references, computes their HMAC hashes, and updates any active matching subscription records.
4. Trigger Email Alerts
When a match is detected, the database updates the subscription and writes a document to the mail queue. The Firebase Trigger Email extension detects this document and automatically sends an email alert to you containing links to verify outcomes on the official channels.