Privacy · Estate Vault

Last updated: October 20, 2026

Draft for review. This policy is not yet in effect and may change before Estate Vault launches.

Estate Vault, Inc. ("Estate Vault", "we", "us") makes the Estate Vault app and website. This policy explains what information we collect, why, who we share it with, and the choices you have.

The short version

We do not sell your information. We do not use it for advertising, and our app and website have no ad trackers or analytics tools.
We never see your bank login. Plaid connects your accounts. We receive account names, account types, the institution's name and balances.
You tell us about other people. That includes your heirs, who may be children. We use their details only to show you your own plan. We never contact them.
Estate Vault is a record of your intentions. It is not a will and not legal advice. See our Terms of Service.
Questions or requests: hello@tryestatevault.com.

1. Who this policy covers

This policy covers:

our website at tryestatevault.com, including the waitlist,
the Estate Vault web app at app.tryestatevault.com,
emails we send you.

Estate Vault is in an invite-only founding beta. It is offered only to people in the United States.

2. Information we collect

2.1 Information you give us

What	Details
Account details	Your first, middle and last name, display name, email address and password. We store your password only as a one-way hash, never as plain text.
Your assets	Accounts and property you add by hand: a name or nickname, category and type, institution, value and the date of that value. We keep a history of value changes.
Beneficiary status	What you tell us about whether a beneficiary form is on file for each asset.
People in your plan	See section 4. For a person: first and last name, relationship to you, and optional email, birth date and photo. For a trust or charity: its name and optional email.
Your intended split	The share of each asset you intend for each person or organization.
Your choices in the app	For example, how you chose to handle a flagged risk, such as an heir who is a minor.
Waitlist	Just your email address, if you join the waitlist on our website.
Messages to us	Anything you send us by email.

2.2 Information from accounts you connect (Plaid)

When you connect a bank or investment account, you do it through Plaid Inc. You type your login into Plaid's window, not ours. We never receive or store your bank username or password.

From Plaid we receive and store, for bank and investment accounts in US dollars (such as checking, savings, brokerage and retirement accounts):

the account name (sometimes with its last four digits),
the account type,
the institution's name,
the current balance, refreshed over time,
the IDs Plaid assigns to your connection, accounts and institution,
the dates your connection's consent needs renewing.

We do not import credit cards, loans, or accounts in other currencies.

We do not store your transactions or your individual investment holdings. To make the connection work, the connection asks Plaid for its "Transactions" and "Investments" data types. That means Plaid itself may collect that data from your institution under its own policy.

Plaid gives us a secret key to reach your accounts, called an access token. We encrypt it with a key held in AWS's key management service before we store it.

Plaid handles your information under the Plaid End User Privacy Policy. You can see and manage the apps connected to your accounts at my.plaid.com.

2.3 Information from sign-in with Google

If you sign in with Google, Google sends us your name, email address, Google account ID and the link to your profile picture. Our sign-in system also stores the access, refresh and ID tokens Google issues, and the permissions you granted.

2.4 Payment information (Stripe)

Membership payments go through Stripe. You enter your card details on Stripe's page, not ours, so we never see or store your card number.

We give Stripe your name, email address and Estate Vault account ID.

We store a record of your membership:

your Stripe customer and subscription IDs,
your plan, price, currency and billing period,
your status (for example active, past due or canceled),
your renewal and cancellation dates.

Stripe handles payment data under the Stripe Privacy Policy.

2.5 Information collected automatically

Sign-in sessions. When you sign in, we store a session record. It holds the IP address and browser details (the "user agent") of the device you signed in from. We use it to keep you signed in and to protect your account.
Security limits. To slow down password-guessing, we keep short-lived counters of repeated attempts. They use a scrambled fingerprint of your IP address, not the address itself. We delete them within minutes.
Application logs. Our app logs each request: the type of request, which part of the app it reached, whether it worked, how long it took, and your account ID if you're signed in. These logs leave out request contents, passwords, cookies, other secrets and your IP address.
Network connection records. Our hosting network keeps separate connection records for security. They hold IP addresses, ports and timing, but no content.
Error reports. When our server hits an error, it sends a stripped-down technical report to Sentry, our error-monitoring provider. We rebuild each report before sending it so it carries only technical details, such as the type of error and where in our code it happened. It never includes your name, email, financial details or the contents of your request.
Browser security reports. Our app's pages send browser security reports to a monitoring service. A report can include the address of the page you were on.
Change history. When you add, change or delete something in the app, we keep a record of what changed and when. This helps us fix problems and protect your account. It includes copies of the details before and after the change, such as an heir's name and birth date.

2.6 Cookies and similar technologies

We use only what the app needs to work:

Name	What it does	How long it lasts
Session cookie (set by our sign-in system)	Keeps you signed in	Until you sign out or the session expires
`__Host-estate-vault.signup_binding`	Links the steps of sign-up together	1 hour
`ev-onboarding-v1:{your account ID}` (stored in your browser)	Remembers where you are in setup	Until you sign out or clear your browser storage

Plaid's connection window and Stripe's checkout page may set their own cookies under their own policies.

We use no analytics, advertising or social-media cookies or tracking tools. Our marketing website sets no cookies.

Because we don't track you across websites, there is nothing for a browser's "Do Not Track" or Global Privacy Control signal to switch off. If we ever add tracking, we will honor those signals and update this policy first.

3. How we use information

We use information to:

Provide the service. That means building and showing your Money Map, refreshing balances, flagging gaps and risks in your plan, and emailing you a copy of your Money Map when you ask for one.
Run your account. That means verifying your email, signing you in, resetting your password, and managing your membership and billing.
Communicate with you. That means sending account emails, notices about your connected accounts, a welcome email, announcements when a new feature opens, and replies to your messages. We don't send marketing emails today. If we start, every one will have an unsubscribe link.
Run the beta. That means deciding who can sign up and inviting people from the waitlist.
Keep the service safe and working. That means preventing fraud and abuse, fixing errors and protecting accounts.
Meet legal obligations and enforce our Terms.

We do not:

sell your personal information,
use it, or anything from your connected accounts, for advertising,
share it with lenders, advisers or other businesses so they can market to you,
use it to train artificial-intelligence models,
run facial recognition on photos.

De-identified data. We do not currently create or use de-identified or combined data from your information. If we ever start, we will update this policy first and say clearly how we use it.

4. Information about other people, including children

Your plan includes people you name, such as a spouse, children, grandchildren, friends, a trust or a charity. You provide their details, not them.

Your responsibility. Only add details you have the right to share. That includes a minor's details, if you are their parent or legal guardian or otherwise have a lawful reason to record them in your own estate plan.
What we do with it. We use these details only to show you your plan. That includes working out whether an heir is under 18 so we can flag it as a risk.
We never contact them. We don't email, call or market to the people you name. You can give an email address for them, but we don't use it today.
We never share them for marketing, and we never give them access to your account.
Photos. If you add a photo, we shrink it, remove its hidden details (such as location and camera data), and keep only that smaller copy. Photos are stored privately and shown only to you, after you sign in.
Children. Estate Vault is not for children, and we don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. A child's details appear only when a parent or guardian adds them to their own plan. If you believe a child has given us information directly, email us and we will delete it.

5. Who we share information with

We share information only with service providers that help us run Estate Vault, and only so they can do that work. We don't let them use it for their own purposes.

Provider	What they do for us	Information involved
Amazon Web Services (US)	Hosts our app, database, file storage and logs	All the information described here, stored encrypted
Plaid	Connects your financial accounts	Your bank login, which goes to Plaid and not to us, plus your account data
Stripe	Processes payments	Name, email, account ID, payment details
Resend	Sends our emails	Your email address and the email's contents. A Money Map copy you request includes your assets, values and the names and relationships of the people in your plan.
Sentry	Error monitoring	Technical error details only (see 2.5)
Better Stack	Uptime and performance monitoring	Technical performance data with account IDs removed, and uptime checks
Google	Sign-in with Google, if you use it; our company email	Name and email; any messages you send us
Cloudflare (and Vercel, until our website moves to AWS)	Run our domain names; Vercel hosts the marketing website	Standard technical data such as IP addresses when you visit the website

We may also share information:

when the law requires it, for example a valid subpoena or court order,
to protect you, us or others from fraud, harm or illegal activity,
in a business transfer, such as a merger, acquisition or sale of assets. The new owner would have to honor this policy or tell you before changing it.
with your permission.

6. How long we keep information

While your account is open, we keep your information so the service works.
When you delete an item in the app (an asset, a person, a photo or a connected account):
- It disappears from your Money Map right away.
- Photos are erased from storage.
- Other items are hidden but kept in our database, along with the change history, so our team can recover from mistakes and keep an audit trail. They are erased when your account is deleted.
Disconnecting an account tells Plaid to cut our access to it at once. The account's details stay with your other deleted items, as above.
When you ask us to delete your account, we permanently delete your information, including deleted items, change history, photos and sign-in records, within 30 days. Copies in our backups are gone within a further 14 days. We keep only what the law requires, such as payment records for tax purposes.
Backups of our database are kept for up to 14 days.
Application logs and network connection records are kept for up to 1 year.
Waitlist emails are kept until you ask us to remove them. Email us at hello@tryestatevault.com and we will delete yours.
Stripe and Plaid keep their own records under their own policies.

7. Your choices and rights

In the app, you can:

see and edit your assets and the people in your plan (to change your name or email, email us),
delete assets, people and photos,
disconnect accounts,
email yourself a copy of your Money Map,
cancel your membership in the billing portal.

By emailing us at hello@tryestatevault.com, you can ask us to:

give you a copy of your information,
correct it,
delete your account and your information.

Account deletion is handled by our team for now. The app doesn't offer it yet.

We will confirm your request comes from you, usually by replying to the email address on your account.
We will answer within 30 days.
We will not treat you differently for using these rights.

You can also:

manage or revoke Plaid's access at my.plaid.com,
remove yourself from the waitlist by emailing us.

State privacy rights. Depending on where you live, you may have more rights under state law. These can include:

knowing what we collect,
correcting it,
deleting it,
getting a portable copy,
opting out of the sale or sharing of your information or targeted advertising (we do none of these),
appealing if we turn down your request.

To appeal, reply to our decision with "Appeal" in the subject line. Someone you authorize may make a request for you, if we can confirm you gave them permission.

8. How we protect information

What we do today:

Encryption in transit. Connections to our website, app and servers are encrypted.
Encryption at rest. Our database, photo storage and logs are encrypted with managed keys. Plaid access tokens get an extra layer: each one is encrypted on its own with a key we use only for these tokens, and it is tied to your account so it can't be read under another one.
Access controls. Each user's records are walled off in the database itself. Our database is not reachable from the public internet, and staff reach it only through a private, secured network.
Sign-in protections. We verify email addresses, limit repeated sign-in attempts, use time-limited password-reset links, and sign you out everywhere when you reset your password.
Error reports and logs leave out personal details, as described in section 2.5.

What we don't do yet:

Two-step sign-in for your account. We don't offer it yet.
No guarantees. No system is perfectly secure, and we can't guarantee that your information will never be accessed without permission.
If a breach affects you, we will tell you as the law requires.

Keep your password private and tell us right away if you think someone has got into your account.

9. Where information is stored

We store information in the United States, on Amazon Web Services in Ohio, with backup copies in Oregon. Our service providers (section 5) may process information where they operate, which may include places outside the United States.

10. If you pass away

Estate Vault does not give anyone else access to your account. That includes your family, your executor and your heirs, before or after your death.

If your executor or personal representative contacts us with a death certificate and proof of their legal authority, we will consider giving them a copy of your Money Map, or deleting your account at their request.

11. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will email you before it takes effect.

12. Contact us

Estate Vault, Inc. hello@tryestatevault.com