Privacy policy

Kistkeep ("Kistkeep", "we", "us", "our") provides a secure digital legacy vault for storing documents, passwords, memories, notes, and instructions, and for granting controlled access to named trusted contacts. For the purposes of UK data protection law, Kistkeep is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy.

This policy applies to visitors of our marketing website, and to registered users of the Kistkeep application. It does not apply to third-party websites you may reach through links on our site, which have their own privacy practices.

Account data: the details you give us directly when you register or update your profile, such as your name, email address, password (stored as a salted hash, never in plain text), and billing contact details.

Vault content: whatever you choose to store, including documents and their metadata, password entries, notes, memories, messages, diary entries, named assets, pets, and the trusted contacts you add. You control what goes in, and you can delete any item at any time.

Payment data: when you subscribe to a paid plan, our payment processor (Stripe) collects and stores your card details directly. We never see or store your full card number; we only receive a payment token, the last four digits, and card brand for display in your billing settings.

Technical and usage data: IP address, browser and device information, login timestamps, and basic in-app activity logs (such as "you added a document" or "you scheduled a message"), collected to secure your account, diagnose problems, and show you an accurate activity history.

Communications data: the content of support emails, in-app messages you exchange with our team, and any feedback you choose to submit.

Most data is collected because you provide it directly: filling in a form, uploading a document, or typing a message. Some technical data is collected automatically by our servers as part of normal operation (for example, recording that a login occurred, for security purposes). We do not use third-party data brokers to enrich or supplement your profile.

We rely on the following legal bases under UK GDPR, depending on the activity: performance of a contract (to provide the vault, trusted contact features, and billing you've signed up for); legitimate interests (to keep the service secure, prevent fraud, and improve reliability, balanced against your rights); consent (for optional communications, such as product update emails you can opt out of at any time); and legal obligation (for example, retaining certain billing records as UK tax law requires).

To provide and maintain your vault, authenticate you, and let you organise and retrieve your content.

To operate the trusted contact and release-condition features you configure, including reviewing reports and notifying the relevant people once a report is confirmed.

To process payments, send billing receipts, and manage subscription changes.

To communicate with you about your account, security notices, and (where you have not opted out) product updates.

To detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, abuse, and security incidents.

To improve Kistkeep, using aggregated or anonymised usage patterns wherever possible.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not use the contents of your vault, including documents, passwords, notes, or messages, for advertising, profiling, or to train third-party AI models.

Documents, notes, messages, and diary entries are encrypted at rest and in transit using AES-256, the industry-standard envelope encryption model, with per-item data encryption keys managed through a dedicated key management service.

Passwords use a separate, stronger model: genuine end-to-end, zero-knowledge encryption. Your Passwords vault is unlocked by a master passphrase that is never transmitted to or stored by our servers; only ciphertext ever reaches us for that module, meaning Kistkeep's own staff cannot read your stored passwords under any circumstance, including in response to a support request.

Access to production systems is restricted to authorised staff on a least-privilege basis, protected by mandatory two-factor authentication, and logged for audit purposes.

Your data is hosted on infrastructure located in the UK and the European Union. We do not transfer personal data outside the UK or EU. If this ever changes, for example to add a new hosting region, we will update this policy and, where required, put an appropriate transfer mechanism (such as the UK's International Data Transfer Addendum) in place first.

We use a small number of carefully chosen service providers (sub-processors) to operate Kistkeep, each bound by a data processing agreement: our cloud hosting provider (to store and serve your data), Stripe (to process payments), and our transactional email provider (to send account and notification emails).

We may disclose personal data if required by law, court order, or a valid request from a public authority, or where necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Kistkeep, our users, or the public. We will notify affected users where legally permitted to do so.

We never sell, rent, or trade your personal data to third parties for their own marketing purposes.

Kistkeep offers "Continue with Google" as an optional way to sign in. If you use it, we request only your name, email address, and profile picture from Google, solely to create and authenticate your Kistkeep account. We do not read your Gmail, Google Contacts, Google Calendar, or any other Google data through this sign-in.

Separately, and only if you explicitly choose to set it up from your account's Cloud Connections settings, Kistkeep can connect to Google Drive with read-only access, so you can import specific files you select into your vault. We never write to, modify, or delete anything in your Google Drive, and we never access files you have not explicitly chosen to import. You can disconnect this access at any time from your account settings or directly from your Google Account's third-party access page.

Kistkeep's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We do not use Google user data for advertising, and we do not sell it or share it with third parties other than the sub-processors described in section 8, and then only where necessary to operate the feature you have used.

Data you have chosen to share with a trusted contact, or set a release condition for, is only made available according to the exact conditions you configure. Release is never automatic on a timer alone: it always requires a report (from a trusted contact or another reporter) that is reviewed by a member of our team before your account status changes and any conditional access unlocks.

A trusted contact who has been granted living access can see only the specific items you shared with them, from the moment you grant it. A trusted contact with a release condition sees nothing until that condition is met and confirmed.

Our marketing website uses only strictly necessary cookies required for basic functionality; it does not currently use analytics, advertising, or tracking cookies. The Kistkeep web application uses essential session and authentication cookies to keep you securely signed in. See our Cookie Policy for full details.

We retain your account and vault data for as long as your account remains active. If you cancel your subscription, we retain your data for a reasonable grace period (to allow you to export it or reactivate) before deletion, unless you request earlier deletion.

Billing records are retained for the period required by UK tax and accounting law, typically six years, even after account closure.

Security and access logs are retained for a limited period (typically 12 months) to support fraud investigation and are then deleted or anonymised.

UK data protection law applies to living individuals; it does not extend rights to a deceased person's estate. Once your account is confirmed as memorialised, following the human-reviewed report process described above, access to your vault is governed entirely by the trusted contact grants and release conditions you configured while alive, not by any default right of your family or estate to demand access.

If no trusted contact or release condition was configured for a given item, that item remains inaccessible to anyone, including us, in line with our zero-knowledge commitment for Passwords and our access controls for everything else.

You have the right to: access the personal data we hold about you; correct inaccurate data; request erasure of your data ("right to be forgotten"), subject to limited legal exceptions such as billing record retention; restrict or object to certain processing; receive your data in a portable format; and withdraw consent at any time for processing based on consent.

You can exercise most of these rights directly from your account settings, including exporting or deleting your data. For anything else, email [email protected] and we will respond within one month, as required by law.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, you have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk, though we would appreciate the chance to resolve any concern directly first.

Kistkeep is not directed at, and is not intended for use by, anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it.

We maintain monitoring and incident-response processes to detect and contain security issues quickly. In the unlikely event of a data breach affecting your personal data, we will notify affected users and, where legally required, the ICO, without undue delay and in line with UK GDPR notification obligations.

We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. We will notify you of material changes by email or in-app notice before they take effect, and the "last updated" date at the top of this page will always reflect the current version.

Questions, requests, or concerns about this policy or your personal data can be sent to [email protected]. We aim to respond to all privacy-related enquiries within five working days.