Security & privacy

Your data, your device.

Suddenly Canadian is built around a simple principle: your most personal information should stay yours. We don't run servers full of your data because we don't have your data.

On-device by default

Your lineage, your documents, your notes — they live on your phone in an AES-256-encrypted database, and every file attachment is individually encrypted with AES-256-GCM. Nothing leaves the device unless you ask it to.

Sync with a key only you control

When you turn on Family Sync, Caseworker Sync, or Legal Counsel Collaboration, your data travels end-to-end-encrypted via a public/private key pair generated on your device. Not even we can read what's in transit.

Export in open formats

Save your work as SUDCAN, SUDCAN+, or SUDCAN PAK files — or as GEDCOM for your favourite genealogy app. Your data is never trapped inside Suddenly Canadian.

Under the hood

For the security-conscious, here's exactly how Suddenly Canadian protects your data on the device — none of this is theoretical, all of it is implemented in the app you'll install.

Database encryption: SQLCipher / AES-256 — every row of your tree, every note you write, every status change is encrypted on disk. Even with physical access to the phone, the raw database file is unreadable.
Attachment encryption: AES-256-GCM with a unique nonce per file. Birth certificates, marriage records, scans, photos — each one is encrypted with an authenticated cipher, so any tampering is detected, not just blocked.
Key derivation: Your passphrase derives the encryption key via Argon2id at OWASP-2023 mobile parameters (64 MiB memory, 3 iterations). Slow on purpose: a strong passphrase is computationally infeasible to brute-force.
Key storage: The derived key is never written to disk. Only the 16-byte salt and an encrypted key verifier live in your platform's secure enclave — iOS Keychain or Android Keystore, hardware-backed on devices that support it.
Session lifecycle: Your encryption key exists only in memory, only while the app is in the foreground. It's wiped on lock, on background, and on sign-out — so a lost phone with a strong passphrase is, in practice, useless to whoever finds it.

SUDCAN Studio on the desktop uses the same security model as the mobile app: files you keep on your computer stay on your computer, and collaboration uses the same end-to-end encryption.

Want to verify this independently?

Once post-launch revenue allows, we commission an independent third-party security pen-test on the mobile app, SUDCAN Studio, and every cloud service we run — plus a privacy attestation by an independent firm. Findings will be published in full here, so you can verify rather than take our word for it.

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