End-to-End Encryption
How Privatera encrypts your text and voice communications exclusively between you and your contact.
Read the complete technical specification, 5-layer architecture, and security boundaries.
1. Device-bound Key Generation
Identity begins in your browser. When you first open Privatera, your device generates a device-bound Ed25519 keypair via the browser Web Crypto API (SubtleCrypto). New private-key material is encrypted into a local password-protected envelope, then imported as a non-extractable runtime handle. It is browser-managed, rather than hardware-backed, and is never uploaded to a server.
2. Session and Voice Encryption
Peers authenticate an encrypted room session using X25519 key agreement and HKDF-SHA-256 key derivation. Text, commands and Room Call audio are sealed with the session’s AES-256-GCM keys before transmission. Direct and Relayed WebRTC calls require DTLS-SRTP and additional AES-256-GCM media encryption. If the required transforms cannot be installed, these modes are refused; choose Room Call.
3. Ephemeral Relay With No Access to Content
The edge relay bridges encrypted binary frames in volatile memory between connected browsers with no access to message or voice content, no stored message content, and no application traffic logs.
4. Ephemeral Key Rotation & Forward Secrecy
Each session generates fresh X25519 ephemeral keys and performs periodic rekeying, providing forward secrecy for past sessions without relying on static encryption keys.
5. Local Database Sealing
Confirmed messages and contact records stored in your browser's local database are sealed with independent AES-256-GCM storage keys and verified on read. Unencrypted contact names and message history are never written in cleartext to disk.
6. Fail-Closed Cryptographic Kill Switch
Security is fail-closed and favors confidentiality over availability: if any authentication tag, signature, replay check, or protocol step fails verification, the Cryptographic Kill Switch severs active sessions and voice channels immediately, clears key material on a best-effort basis, and never falls back to plaintext or weakened modes.
Encryption does not hide traffic timing or packet sizes. Voice payloads are not padded to a fixed length. Key cleanup is best effort; JavaScript cannot guarantee memory erasure.