Trust Center

What we hold, and what we refuse to.

This page documents how ClearCiviQ protects your data: the architecture, how your vault is encrypted, the complete list of what we store, and the things we have deliberately built ourselves out of being able to see.

Last updated: August 14, 2026

Architecture

Privacy by design,
not by policy.

PILLAR 01

Zero-knowledge vault

Everything you store in ClearCiviQ is encrypted on your device before it leaves. Your passphrase never travels to us. The key derived from it never travels to us. Our servers hold ciphertext that is mathematically unreadable without a key that only exists on your phone. This is not a setting you enable. It is the only way the product works.

PILLAR 02

Data minimization

The default for every field is: do not store it. We keep a one-way hashed sign-in identifier, your subscription tier, and account timestamps. No email. No name. No password database. A breach of our systems would yield encrypted blobs and hashes that are useless to an attacker.

PILLAR 03

On-device PII scrubbing

Before your goal text reaches our AI provider, identifiers like names, addresses, and SSNs are redacted on your device, then checked again server-side.

PILLAR 04

No training on your data

Your inputs are used to generate your roadmap and nothing else. We do not use your data to train AI models, and our agreements with providers prohibit it.

PILLAR 05

Crypto-shredding deletion

Deleting your account destroys the encrypted blobs tied to it, and without the key that is irreversible by anyone, including us. Deletion is immediate when you confirm it with your passphrase. If you have lost both your passphrase and your recovery key you can still schedule it, and it completes after a 30-day waiting period that any successful unlock cancels.

Cryptography

How your vault is protected.

No proprietary crypto. Every primitive we use is an open, standard, widely reviewed one. We describe what they do rather than publishing a parts list.

Key derivation
Memory-hard, on your device. Your passphrase is turned into a key using a deliberately slow, memory-intensive function tuned to current OWASP guidance, which is what makes guessing it at scale impractical. The passphrase itself is never transmitted and never stored.
Vault encryption
Authenticated encryption. Every record is sealed with integrity protection, so tampering is detectable rather than merely unreadable. Encryption happens on your device, before anything is sent.
Key separation
Independent keys per purpose. Separate keys are derived for signing in, for encrypting your vault, and for verifying your passphrase, so no single key unlocks everything and your login can never derive your vault key.
Recovery
A recovery key generated on your device during setup and held only by you. It can restore vault access if you forget your passphrase. It is never transmitted to us. We cannot reset, recover, or regenerate it.
In transit
Encrypted on every connection between your device and our infrastructure, using current TLS. There is no unencrypted path.
At rest
Two layers. The ciphertext your device produced is stored on infrastructure that is itself encrypted at rest, with keys held in a hardware-backed managed vault.

We name properties rather than specific algorithms and versions. The security of this design rests on keys we do not hold, not on which primitives we picked, and a published parts list mainly helps someone deciding where to aim.

Data Inventory

What we hold. What we never will.

The complete list of what we store
  • A hashed sign-in identifier. One-way, salted. We cannot reverse it into your identity.
  • Subscription tier. Free, Pro, or Pro Family, synced from your app store.
  • Account timestamps. Created and last-seen dates, used for billing integrity.
  • Encrypted vault blobs. Your roadmaps and documents as ciphertext we cannot open.
What never touches our servers
  • Your name or email. Sign-in is handled by your device platform; we receive a token, not an identity.
  • Your passphrase or keys. Generated and held on-device only.
  • Readable vault contents. Documents, notes, and roadmap details exist in plaintext only on your phone.
  • Biometrics. Face ID and fingerprint stay inside your device's secure enclave. We receive a pass/fail signal only.
  • Advertising identifiers. No ad SDKs, no trackers, no cross-app identifiers, ever.
Operations

How we run the service.

Least-privilege access

Production access is restricted to managed identities with narrowly scoped permissions. Secrets live in a hardware-backed vault, never in code, configuration files, or developer machines.

Continuous monitoring

Infrastructure health, anomalous traffic, and abuse patterns are monitored around the clock. Monitoring covers system behavior, never the contents of your encrypted data, which we cannot read.

Automated security review on every release

Every change is blocked from shipping unless static analysis, dependency and code scanning, and an authenticated dynamic scan against the running service all pass. Findings are remediated on a severity-based timeline, and accepted risks are recorded with an expiry date rather than waived silently. We do not currently publish a third-party penetration test; when we commission one we will say so here rather than imply it.

Vendor minimization

We work with a deliberately small set of service providers, and we name them. Apple provides sign-in and billing through the App Store. RevenueCat records which subscription plan an account holds; it receives an opaque account identifier and subscription status, never your name or vault contents. Anthropic, our AI provider, receives only PII-scrubbed goal text and, with your explicit consent, a record number you asked us to monitor. Microsoft Azure runs our servers and stores ciphertext it cannot read. Expo delivers app updates and brokers push notifications; it receives a push token and your device platform, never your name or vault contents. On this website only, Google Fonts serves the typeface and Formspree receives launch-list signups. No analytics brokers. No data resellers. This is the current and complete list.

Breach notification

In the event of a security incident affecting your data, we will notify affected users and regulators as required by applicable state law. Because of the zero-knowledge design, the blast radius of any breach is limited to hashes and ciphertext.

Compliance

Privacy law, taken literally.

ClearCiviQ is built to comply with the full body of U.S. state privacy law, including California's CCPA/CPRA, Illinois BIPA, Virginia CDPA, Colorado CPA, Texas TDPSA, and the comprehensive laws of more than a dozen other states. Our architecture makes much of this straightforward: rights like deletion and access are easy to honor when the data held is minimal and the rest is encrypted beyond our reach.

Responsible Disclosure

Found a vulnerability?

We welcome good-faith security research. Report findings privately and we commit to acknowledging within 48 hours, keeping you informed through remediation, and never pursuing legal action against good-faith research.

security@clearciviq.app

Please include reproduction steps. Do not access other users' data or degrade the service.