Ardea Lock
Sealed on your phone. Opened only on theirs.
Ardea Lock is the protection on everything you send. It's always on, and nobody can switch it off, including us.
End to end
Sealed before it leaves your phone.
Before anything leaves your phone, the app seals it with keys that exist only on your devices and the devices of the people you're talking to.
- Your wordsMessages and your edits to them.
- Your filesPhotos, videos, voice messages and documents.
- Your callsThe sound and the picture.
- Your profile photoSent sealed to your contacts, never to our servers.
- Your groupsWhich ones you're in, and who else is in them.
- Fresh keysEach conversation keeps changing its keys, so one stolen key opens very little.
Ready for the quantum age
Two locks on every seal.
A large enough quantum computer could one day break most of today's encryption. Someone could record sealed messages now and try to open them later. Ardea is built so that doesn't work.
- Proven encryptionElliptic-curve P-384, used and studied for decades.
- Post-quantum encryptionML-KEM-1024 to seal and ML-DSA-87 to sign, from the US government's new open standards.
- Always bothBoth must be broken to open a seal. The app never uses one without the other.
- Never optionalPost-quantum protection can't be turned off.
Calls and notifications
Private on the line, quiet on the screen.
Calls are sealed end to end, and notifications carry nothing you said.
- Sealed callsEvery piece of sound and picture is sealed with your conversation's keys, inside a second, standard layer of call encryption.
- Your address stays privateCalls pass through our relay, so the person you call never sees your internet address. The relay can't hear or see the call.
- Empty notificationsApple's notification service only wakes the app: no words, no sender, no conversation. The app then opens the message on your phone.
Checked, not trusted
Make sure it's really them.
If the words match, nobody is sitting in the middle.
- Twelve safety wordsEach conversation has a safety number, shown as twelve plain words. Compare them in person or on a call.
- Scan in personOr scan the code on their screen. Ardea then shows a green shield beside their name.
- Two words on a callDuring a call, each of you reads out two words from your screen.
Said plainly
What our servers can and can't see.
No messaging service can deliver mail without knowing where it goes. We keep that to the minimum. The privacy policy lists everything, and how long each thing is kept.
| Thing | Can the servers see it? |
|---|---|
| Your messages, photos, files and calls | No. They're sealed. |
| Your groups and who is in them | No. |
| Your profile photo | No. It goes sealed to your contacts. |
| Who an envelope is for, its size and when it was sent | Yes, to deliver it. Envelopes are deleted once collected. |
| Your email address and the name you choose | Yes, to run your account. |
| Your internet address | Yes, while connected, to reach your phone and stop abuse. Not kept in a log. |
Your phone
Locked, even when your phone isn't.
Someone holding your unlocked phone still can't simply read your conversations.
- Face ID or PINArdea opens only with your face or your own PIN.
- Stronger sign-in at workWork accounts can also require a passkey or a hardware security key.
Honest by design
What we don't claim.
Trust comes from saying what isn't true yet, as well as what is.
- Not yet reviewedArdea hasn't yet been certified, or reviewed by an outside security firm. When it is, we'll say so here and name who did it.
- Screens can be photographedEncryption can't stop someone photographing a screen, or reading a phone that's unlocked in their hands.
- Nothing is perfectThat's why Ardea is built to hold as little as it can.
- In design WhisperA private mode for people who need to hide not just what they say, but who they're talking to. It isn't in the app yet.
Security
Report a security problem.
If you think you've found a weakness in Ardea or this website, please tell us. Thank you for helping keep people safe.
- Include enough detail for us to reproduce it.
- Give us a reasonable time to fix it before you share it with anyone else.
- Please don't test against other people's accounts or data.
We'll confirm we've received your report and keep you updated. Our machine-readable security contact is at /.well-known/security.txt.