Metabase makes it easy to share a question, dashboard, or document through a public link. That feature is useful for status pages, customer-facing reports, and time-sensitive communication. It also creates an access path that may live longer than the team that created it. A public-link inventory should be part of the analytics security model.
What the link exposes
Metabase documentation describes public items as view-only results. Visitors cannot drill into the underlying data on their own through the public view. Administrators can find publicly shared questions, dashboards, documents, and actions in the public-sharing administration area. The public link is still an exposure of the rendered result and its filters, even when the database itself is not exposed.
A public chart can reveal customer names, internal targets, account identifiers, or the existence of a service. The question is not only whether the public item is read-only. It is whether the underlying data belongs in a public result and whether the visible filters can be changed to reach a wider range.
A bounded ZoomEye observation
On 2026-10-31, a count-only query using app="Metabase" returned 117323 matches. title="Metabase" returned 108133. Both used page 1, page size 1, and sub_type=all. The different counts show why a single field should not be treated as a complete asset census. An app fingerprint and an HTML title can describe overlapping but not identical observations.
These counts do not show whether public sharing is enabled or whether any public link exists. They identify a broader population with a Metabase-like fingerprint or title. A dashboard count from an internal inventory is a different measurement and should not be compared as if it were the same data source.
Inventory the public surface
List every public question, dashboard, document, action, and collection. Record the owner, business purpose, creation date, last review date, and the datasets or columns involved. A link should have a second owner so that team changes do not leave it unmanaged. Remove links whose purpose has ended.
Review the public-sharing setting itself. If the organization does not need public links, disable the feature where the deployment allows it. If it is needed, restrict who can create links and require a review before publication. Administrative visibility is useful only when someone is assigned to act on it.
Test the rendered result
Open the link without an authenticated session. Check every filter, export, and embedded resource that appears. Try changing a filter to a value outside the intended scope. If the public result changes to show unrelated data, the dashboard needs a narrower query or a different publication method. Check the page for embedded assets that may call another endpoint.
Compare the public result with the source question. A saved question can be edited after a dashboard was shared. If the dashboard points to the updated question, the public page may display more data than the reviewer approved. Version or snapshot the data model when the platform supports it, and recheck after ownership changes.
Keep the observation separate from the conclusion
ZoomEye can point an analyst toward deployments with a recognizable Metabase interface. It cannot prove that a public link is risky. The stronger workflow combines the search observation with a local list of public links, a data classification review, and a real unauthenticated test. That workflow gives the team a defensible answer about what is public and who owns the next action.