Privacy

What we store about a secret

The secret itself is encrypted before it is written to the database. The key is derived from the one-time link and is never stored — so the encrypted text in our database cannot be decrypted by us, by anyone with a copy of a backup, or by anyone who compromises the server, unless they also hold the link.

Alongside it we keep: who created it, an optional label they wrote for themselves, when it was created, when it expires, whether it has been opened and at what time, and — only if the sender chose to have us email it — the recipient’s address.

What we don’t store

• • The plaintext of any secret.
• • The one-time link, or anything from which it could be reconstructed.
• • The IP address or browser of whoever opens a secret.
• • The contents of any email we send.

For rate limiting we derive a rotating, non-reversible token from the network address of a request. It changes on a schedule and cannot be linked back to an address or correlated across time windows.

How long we keep it

The encrypted secret is destroyed as soon as it is read, or when it expires — whichever comes first — with no manual step involved. The record that a secret existed stays on the sender’s dashboard for 90 days after expiry, then is deleted automatically. Email delivery logs record only the address, subject and outcome, and are kept for 90 days.

Your account

We store your name, email address and a hashed password. Your name and address are shown to people you send secrets to, so they can tell the link is genuine.

Spam protection

The sign-up and password-reset forms are protected by Google reCAPTCHA, which is subject to Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. It runs on those two pages only, never on the page where a secret is opened, and we don’t pass your IP address to Google.

Contact

Host Dada Secrets is operated by Host Dada, a company registered in England under company number 14514477. For any privacy question, contact us through hostdada.co.uk.