$ cat legal/privacy-policy.md

Privacy Policy

This policy explains what PingVaults processes, what is published permanently, which providers support the service, and the limits of deletion.

Last updated: October 14, 2026

Who operates PingVaults

PingVaults is operated by Brightcore Technologies LLC. Privacy questions and data requests can be sent to info@pingvaults.com.

Account and authentication data

  • Your email address for email-code or Google sign-in and account identification.
  • A hashed, single-use email code with a 10-minute application expiry and a limited number of attempts.
  • A secure, HTTP-only session cookie; short-lived state and return-path cookies during Google sign-in.
  • Plan, Stripe customer, and subscription references when you purchase or manage a paid plan.

Vault and inactivity-switch data

The intended save flow sends encrypted ciphertext, a random salt and IV, the recovery-field schema and language, and storage identifiers. When you enable the inactivity switch, it also stores the emergency-contact email, an optional reminder backup email, schedule settings, status, and activity timestamps.

  • The save request is designed not to include your vault plaintext, recovery phrase, or derived encryption key.
  • Recovery prompt text and field types are metadata and may reveal context; do not put secrets in a prompt.
  • The browser stores the latest exported recovery metadata locally on your device so you can download and test it.

Permanent public storage

New vault ciphertext is uploaded to Arweave through ArDrive Turbo and can be requested by transaction ID. A Turbo upload receipt or gateway response does not prove the data is already in an Arweave block. Older vaults uploaded through Irys remain readable while gateways are available. Editing creates a new upload, not deletion of earlier published copies. PingVaults does not offer removal of published ciphertext from storage networks or third-party copies.

Earlier PingVaults versions may have added a Base64-encoded account-email identifier to an Arweave transaction tag. Base64 is encoding, not encryption. New uploads no longer include that tag, but any historical Arweave tag cannot be removed by PingVaults. Contact us if you need help understanding whether this affected an earlier upload.

Analytics and operational data

Cloudflare provides application hosting and sampled operational logs. We no longer send browser analytics to Vercel. Browser product events are not centrally collected by default. Custom product events contain only coarse fields such as language, plan, step, and boolean feature state. We do not intentionally include email addresses, transaction IDs, recovery phrases, or vault contents in those events. Hosting and application providers may also process IP addresses, user-agent data, timestamps, and request logs for delivery, security, and troubleshooting.

Service providers

  • Cloudflare for application hosting, content delivery, DNS, and operational logs.
  • Cloudflare Email Service for login codes, check-in reminders and emergency-contact emails; the inactivity check runs as a scheduled Cloudflare Worker.
  • Amazon Web Services for DynamoDB records (vault metadata, not vault contents).
  • Google for optional OAuth sign-in.
  • Stripe for checkout, subscription, and billing management. PingVaults does not receive full card details.
  • ArDrive Turbo for new ciphertext uploads to Arweave; Arweave and Irys gateways for retrieval, including older vaults. Online availability is not guaranteed; keep independent exports.

Retention, deletion, and your choices

Account, vault-index, contact, schedule, and billing records are kept while needed to provide the service, meet legal obligations, resolve disputes, and prevent abuse. You may ask us to delete or correct deletable application records or cancel a subscription by contacting us or using the billing portal. A deletion request cannot remove Arweave transactions or records another provider must retain by law.

Security and children

We use technical and organizational controls appropriate to the service, but no internet service or cryptographic design eliminates every risk. PingVaults is not directed to children under 13. Do not use it to store another person’s data unless you are authorized to do so.

Changes

We may update this policy as the product or providers change. The date above identifies the current version. Material changes will be presented through the site or an account communication when appropriate.