Your data remains on your device only. It's encrypted by default on modern devices. However, if your device is compromised or your biometrics / security PIN are compromised, you should be keenly aware that no method can protect your data.

Well, maybe there's ways to protect your data. Ankh offers a Shredcryption feature that performs time capsule encryption: you can seal away selected data, rendering it inaccessible to anyone for an estimated 100 years, including you.

FAQ: What is shredcryption?

Should Ankh someday add cloud storage, the plan is pure end-to-end encryption. Thus only you can "unlock" the data with a password or similar. Ankh servers would just store a garbled, encrypted version.*

Furthermore, it's hard to say how sophisticated attackers are, especially state-sponsored ones. If you are a public figure or otherwise at risk, presume your device is compromised.

For more details, see the privacy policy.

* Due to anti-end-to-end encryption laws, cloud storage may not be available in all countries when implemented.

No, Ankh is not storing or processing your answers and data. So we can't steal or sell it. This can be verified by monitoring the internet traffic from the app.

It's clear to us that no one will answer questions (nor use the app) if they think their data is being peeked at.

That said, Ankh processes limited, anonymized analytics data. The bulk of it is focused on the onboarding steps of the app in order to improve user engagement and user acquisition (yes, through online ads).

See our privacy policy for a detailed review of exactly how limited the analytics are.

For more, see:

FAQ: I don't believe you're not stealing my data, prove it

Don't record people without consent. Even if your local laws permit it, ethically, you shouldn't.

You may be concerned that getting consent will make the interactions less genuine. However, the effect of being aware of recording lessens with multiple sessions and participants have easy-to-detect lapses in awareness (of the recorder).

A far future civilization, having the entire Ankh data set, may in fact very easily detect and compensate for recording awareness when integrating the data. Finally, it's far-fetched, yet possible, that they would consider non-consensual recordings ineligible for personality reconstruction.

It'd be impossible to improve the app without analytics. The Ankh app will be useful to no one if, without improvement, it's too tedious or boring to use.

The analytics are anonymized and don't contain answer data. We track a minimal amount of data, focused on feature areas where improvement is needed - like the onboarding sequence. The ability to opt out of analytics is planned (and likely necessary if we want to operate in Europe).

See the privacy policy.

It's entirely impossible to acquire users in a cost-effective manner, with online Facebook ads, without this integration. The data we transmit is limited to a few key moments during onboarding which tell us we reached the right kind of user. This allows similar, interested users to be acquired later. It's simply whether a step was reached or not, there's no analysis of answer data.

For what it's worth, the ability to opt out of even this minimal Facebook ads tracking would make us happy as well, so we're exploring other options.

See the privacy policy for more details.

First of all - Ankh currently doesn't have servers for collecting your answers and other personality data. Once we have servers, they will use end-to-end encryption which will make the data unreadable to us, preserving your privacy.

So, your data remains on your device only.

A minimal, anonymized set of analytics data is collected in order to improve the app and user acquisition. See the privacy policy.

For the purposes of digital resurrection, Ankh collects:

* Answers, including partial and undone answers

* Entities defined by the user (like people, things)

* Files added by the user

* Shredcryption (time capsule) files

* Activity data (like minigame interactions)

* Which questions were viewed, skipped, banned from reappearing, or saved for later

* Which questions were de-selected for the shredcryption feature.

It also logs Export and Import interactions. More may be added in the future, for example location and accelerometer / gyroscope data, if the user opts in.

To reiterate, please note that in order to extract the maximum amount of personality information, the app keeps history of the mentioned data (e.g. answers in various stages of being edited). A feature is planned to allow the user to manage this edit history and deletion.

Ankh can't help you digitize or preserve your DNA (yet). Plan accordingly.

For DNA sequencing, you should aim for full genome and mitochondrial sequencing, if available. Please be careful with privacy considerations - there are many concerns DNA companies retain their customers' data and that it may be abused later.

If you're dying and can't wait for a sequencing solution, look into DNA preservation kits. Even the cheapest kits boast shelf lives that are... to die for. Sorry.

We may eventually find a partner company that would sequence and digitize the DNA - depending on whether any satisfy the privacy requirements.

Check the traffic yourself. Run a phone proxy or packet sniffer and watch every byte Ankh sends. You’ll see only the tiny, anonymous analytics we've described.

Still worried? Use Ankh in airplane mode and unload it from memory when not in use, or find some other way to block only Ankh's internet access. Perhaps use it on an old, dedicated phone.

We plan to explore ways to make the app auditable - please reach out with recommendations. We're still looking to make money, so we're unsure about open-sourcing.

Note that absolute proof is tricky. Want to get really paranoid? Imagine this: if Ankh is malicious, it could use a steganographic approach to leak data. Just a very carefully timed heartbeat signal to an analytics server can slowly and secretly encode data bit by bit in the timing itself (choosing specific five-second periods to "beat" encodes data in the timings, while the limited and upstanding analytics data it actually transmits is just a ruse). Fun.

No. Impersonating a real, living - or recently deceased - person violates our terms of use and can veer into harassment. If you suspect someone is doing this, report it: support@getankh.com.

Role-playing a fictional character, alter ego, or long-dead historical figure is fine as long as it can't be mistaken for a real individual. Do not satirize real individuals, however. Use common sense: if your act could distress or mislead someone, don’t do it.

First of all, keep your phone locked. We're working on an in-app security lock as well, which will confirm your identity first.

Other than hopefully a far future civilization or entity digitally resurrecting you, or a far future archeologist learning about you, probably not.

Your answers are used, on your device only, to determine which questions to pose to you next.

Over time, we may add opt-in features if they prove valuable, as long as they are done in a maximally privacy-preserving manner. We understand that just because a feature is "opt-in" doesn't mean it can throw privacy out the window.

Yes, just delete the app from your device. Your answers and data are not synced to a server. Make sure to track down and delete any exports you've made.

Your device’s operating system may also create backups of app data. Be sure to check for and delete any such backups. As with exports, this isn’t something Ankh Inc. can delete for you.

We don't currently offer a way to delete the minimal, pseudonymized analytics data we transmit - to our understanding at least one of our analytics / ad optimization providers does not even offer data deletion (specifically: Facebook).

That said, email us if you want us to try anyway: support@getankh.com

For more details, see the privacy policy.

Currently, your answers and data remain only on your device.

In the future we may implement a paid option to sync your data to a cloud. The synced data would be end-to-end encrypted, so only you (as the holder of the encryption password) could decipher it.

Not conveniently. We don't store your data in the cloud yet, so the only way to sync data is to use the Export feature, and then the Import feature.

Do note it will neatly merge import data so you can use Ankh on multiple devices and export / import back and forth. But, we understand this is a slow and arduous process, and this is in place as a last resort until we implement cloud data sync.

Your phone may offer native app data sync to a proprietary cloud (not Ankhs). Please be weary when using such features since we cannot guarantee your privacy.

Not right now. We don't store your data in the cloud, so the only way someone can access your data is for you to give them your device or a file you create via the Export feature.