Secure document storage with a key only you hold

What the Personal Repository is

It is a locker for the papers you want to keep close but that FinLens does not otherwise use: identity documents, a driving licence, passbooks and loan papers, deeds and receipts, degrees and marksheets, medical reports and prescriptions, payslips and offer letters, and anything else. Each item has a type, a title, the person it belongs to and details such as a number, the issue and expiry dates, and the issuer. An item can hold up to ten files, so both sides of a card or every page of a certificate stay together.

The page has five tabs: Overview, All documents, Categories, Expiry and Notes & Vault. Notes & Vault keeps notes in five categories (Personal Notes, Passwords, Financial Information, Wi-Fi & Devices and Confidential). A password note holds the website or app, the username, the e-mail and the password, which stays masked until you reveal it.

The problem with keeping personal documents online

A file kept on a server is usually encrypted with a key the service also holds. That protects it from someone who steals a disk, but whoever runs the service, or takes over its accounts, can still open it. Elsewhere in FinLens this is how your uploaded statements are kept, because FinLens has to read them to show your money.

A passport, an Aadhaar card or a list of passwords needs no reading by FinLens, so the Personal Repository is built differently. Files and details are locked in your browser, and the key that opens them comes from a passphrase only you know.

Who the secure document locker is for

• Anyone who wants identity papers and certificates to hand without leaving them readable on a server.
• People who keep passwords, Wi-Fi keys, locker numbers or nominee notes on paper today.
• The family member who keeps everyone's papers: each item can be tagged with the person it belongs to.

What end-to-end encryption gives you

How the end-to-end lock works

1. Set up the repository

   Choose a passphrase of at least 12 characters, not your sign-in PIN. Your browser makes a random repository key and wraps it with a key drawn from the passphrase.

2. Save your recovery code

   The code is shown once. It unwraps a second copy of the repository key. You confirm you saved it by typing its last group.

3. Add a document

   Choose Add document, pick the type, and add a PDF, JPG, PNG or WebP of up to 10 MB, or Take a photo. A photo is redrawn in the browser, which drops its location data.

4. Locked before it is sent

   Each item gets its own key. Its details and files are encrypted with AES-256 in your browser, bound to your account and that item, and only then uploaded.

5. Unlock to use it

   Your passphrase opens the repository in this browser. It locks again after 15 minutes without use, unless you choose Keep unlocked on this device, for up to 7 days.

What you provide

• A passphrase, and a safe place away from the device for your recovery code.
• Your documents as PDF, JPG, PNG or WebP: up to 10 MB a file and 10 files an item.
• Each item's details (type, title, person, number and dates), typed in or read when you tick Read it with AI help.
• Notes, tags and sign-in details for Notes & Vault.

What the server can and cannot see

• It can see that you have a repository, how many items and files it holds, their sizes, and when each was added or changed.
• It cannot see an item's title, type or category, any number or note, a password, the files, or even whether an item is a note or a document.
• It keeps your key only in wrapped forms it cannot unwrap, and a check value that lets it refuse changes from a browser that has not unlocked the repository.
• If you tick Read it with AI help, the paper's text, with your name, your family's names and identifying numbers replaced by placeholders, passes once through FinLens to an AI model. The reading is locked with the item in your browser, and FinLens keeps nothing of it.
• A photo or a scan has no text to mask. If you tick it for one, the picture itself goes once, as it is.

Limits, and the cost of this kind of privacy

• If you forget your passphrase and lose your recovery code, nobody can open your files, FinLens included. The only way forward is to delete the repository, after your PIN, and start again.
• Because the server cannot read your files, nothing in the repository feeds the rest of FinLens, and support cannot recover an item for you.
• The page runs code that FinLens serves. Someone able to change that code could capture your key the next time you unlock; malware on your device, or a device left unlocked, sees what you see.
• The Expiry tab shows what runs out; there are no expiry reminders, and an item cannot be shared.
• Insurance policies, bank and card statements and income tax returns are not among its types. They live on Healthcare, Accounts, Credit Cards and Tax Filing, where FinLens reads them; an RC or a deed points you to Property first.
• Up to 1,000 items, with storage shared with your other documents (500 MB in all).

Questions about personal repository in FinLens