Privacy
Are Digital Letters Private? Encryption, Metadata and Recovery
The privacy of a digital letter depends on how the service is built. Here is what end-to-end encryption protects, what it does not hide, and what to ask.
The Old Letters Editorial · · 8 min
The short answer: they can be private, but not by definition
A letter being digital or behind a login does not by itself tell you who can read its contents. Privacy depends on encryption, key management, notifications, account recovery, and the technical data a service processes.
With genuine end-to-end encryption, content is encrypted on the sender’s device and decrypted only on an authorised recipient’s device. The server carries an encrypted envelope but should not receive the readable letter or the key required to open it.
What E2EE protects in The Old Letters
The Old Letters encrypts letter content and supported attachments on the device. A recipient needs authorised access to the correspondence and the appropriate device key to see plaintext. Letter content is not copied into email notifications.
This is a technical product boundary, not a promise of anonymity. Administrators should not be able to read letters, while the service still has to manage accounts, permissions, encrypted packages and delivery.
What end-to-end encryption does not hide
E2EE protects content, but it does not erase every piece of metadata. A service may need account identifiers, permission information, creation or delivery times, message state, plan parameters, and technical signals needed to prevent abuse.
Metadata is not the letter itself, yet it can still be sensitive. An honest privacy explanation separates these layers instead of claiming that “the server knows nothing”.
- Protected by E2EE: letter text and supported attachments.
- Operationally necessary: accounts, permissions, encrypted packages and delivery data.
- Public only when deliberately published: marketing pages and blog content — never private correspondence.
Account recovery is part of the security model
If a provider can silently recreate every key and read every letter, ask whether the system is truly end to end. But user control also creates responsibility: losing a password, recovery code and trusted-device access can make encrypted data inaccessible.
The Old Letters provides a recovery path based on a user-held secret. Store it separately and do not paste it into ordinary chat or email. Encryption also cannot protect a device that is already unlocked, compromised, or shared with someone else.
Five questions before trusting a service with an important letter
You do not need to audit cryptography yourself. You should still be able to find clear answers to these questions:
- Is content encrypted before it leaves the device?
- Who holds the keys required to decrypt it?
- Which metadata does the service keep, and why?
- What happens after a password or device is lost?
- Can the account be deleted and important material exported?