Privnotc uses AES-256 encryption — the same standard used by governments and financial institutions worldwide — to encrypt your note directly in your browser before it is ever transmitted to our servers. This means our servers only ever store encrypted data that is meaningless without the decryption key, which is embedded in the unique link we generate for you. Once the recipient opens the link and reads the note, the encrypted data is permanently and irrevocably deleted from our servers within milliseconds. We maintain no backups of note content, no message logs, and no archives. Even if our servers were compromised, attackers would find only encrypted data with no way to decrypt it.

While we cannot prevent a recipient from manually copying text that is displayed on their screen (this is a fundamental limitation of any digital communication), the note itself can only be opened once. After the first viewing, the link becomes permanently invalid and the encrypted data is deleted from our servers. This means the recipient cannot share the original link with others, and there is no way to access the note a second time. For maximum security, we recommend using the optional passphrase feature, which requires the recipient to enter a password before the note is decrypted.

No. Privnotc is designed to be completely anonymous and requires no registration whatsoever. You do not need to provide an email address, a phone number, a name, or any other personal information to create and send self-destructing notes. Simply visit our website, type your message, and share the generated link. This zero-registration approach is a core part of our privacy philosophy — we believe the best way to protect your data is to never collect it in the first place.

If a note is never opened by the recipient, it will remain on our servers in encrypted form until it reaches its expiration time. By default, unread notes are automatically deleted after 30 days. However, you can customize this expiration period when creating your note — options include 1 hour, 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days. Once the expiration time is reached, the encrypted data is permanently purged from our servers regardless of whether it was read. This ensures that no note lingers on our infrastructure indefinitely.

Privnotc's core self-destructing note feature is completely free with no limitations on the number of notes you can create, no character limits, and no advertising. We believe that basic privacy tools should be accessible to everyone. We do offer optional premium features for power users and businesses, including custom branding, API access for automated note creation, team management dashboards, and priority support. However, the free tier provides full encryption, automatic destruction, optional passphrases, and customizable expiration — everything most users need for secure communication.

Server location matters significantly for data privacy. Switzerland has some of the world's strongest data protection laws, including the Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), which provides robust legal safeguards against unauthorized data access, mass surveillance, and compelled disclosure. Unlike many other jurisdictions, Swiss law does not allow government agencies to conduct blanket surveillance of digital communications. By hosting our infrastructure in Switzerland, we ensure that your encrypted data benefits from these strong legal protections in addition to our technical security measures. This dual layer of protection — technical encryption plus Swiss legal jurisdiction — gives our users an exceptionally high level of privacy assurance.

Currently, Privnotc supports text-based self-destructing notes. We are actively developing support for encrypted file attachments, which will allow you to share documents, images, PDFs, and other file types with the same self-destructing, one-time-read functionality. This feature is expected to launch later in 2026. In the meantime, for sharing sensitive files, we recommend encrypting them locally using a tool like 7-Zip or VeraCrypt and sharing the decryption password via a Privnotc self-destructing note.

You can reach our team by email at info@secretnote.com or by phone at +41 44 555 0199 during business hours (CET). For security vulnerabilities or concerns, we encourage responsible disclosure and will respond to security-related inquiries within 24 hours. Our office is located at 42 Privacy Lane, Zurich, 8001, Switzerland. We also welcome general feedback, feature requests, and partnership inquiries through any of these channels.