Privacy Policy

1. 01The Service

   Bitcessing lets you store files on a public blockchain, and lets two parties prepare, sign and record a contract. Files and contracts are encrypted in your browser before they leave your device, with keys that only you (and, for a contract, your counterparty) hold. We cannot read them.

   The encrypted data is recorded on the BSV public blockchain. Anyone can see that a record exists, how large it is and when it was made, but not what it says.

2. 02What we do not collect

   • No accounts, user names or passwords.
   • No e-mail addresses, phone numbers or other contact details are needed to use the Service. (If you buy tokens, Stripe collects what it needs for the payment; see “Token purchases”.)
   • No readable file or contract contents, and no readable file names. Encryption and decryption happen only in your browser.
   • No private keys. Your private key is derived from your passkey on your device and never leaves your browser.
   • No advertising or analytics cookies, and no tracking scripts.

3. 03What we can observe

   To deliver the Service, our servers and our hosting providers necessarily receive ordinary connection metadata and request data, which may include:

   • your IP address and basic browser information;
   • your public key, which your browser sends with signed requests (for example when you store a file, list your files, or buy or use tokens);
   • which contract addresses or transactions were looked up or submitted, and the size of the data stored;
   • the time of each request.

   Because both parties fetch the same contract, this metadata could allow someone with access to the logs to link the creator and the responder of a contract, for example by IP address. If this matters to you, consider connecting through a VPN or a similar network privacy tool.

   We use this information only for the purposes listed under “Purposes of use”. We do not sell it and do not use it for advertising.

4. 04Storage in your browser

   So that the Service works across visits, it keeps some data in your browser’s local storage:

   • your session key (the private key derived from your passkey), so you stay signed in until you log out;
   • an encrypted index of your contracts, so your dashboard can list them;
   • the list of files you have stored (names, sizes and where they are on-chain), so you can open them again;
   • your language preference.

   This data stays on your device. Logging out removes the session key; clearing this site’s data in your browser removes the rest. Anyone using your browser while you are signed in can act as you, so log out on shared devices.

5. 05Your file list on our servers

   So that your file list follows your passkey to other browsers and devices, we also keep a copy of it on our relay servers. Each entry contains:

   • an owner tag: a value computed one-way (with SHA-256) from your public key. It tells us which entries belong to the same key; it is not your key and cannot be used to sign or decrypt anything;
   • the ID of the blockchain transaction that holds the file;
   • the file’s details, such as its name, type and size, encrypted in your browser with a key derived from your private key, so that we cannot read them;
   • the time the entry was first saved.

   The owner tag lets us tell which stored files belong to the same key. Removing a file from your list hides its entry; it does not delete the file from the blockchain.

6. 06Token purchases

   Tokens are bought on Stripe’s checkout page. Stripe and its affiliate Link, which may act as the seller of record (merchant of record) for these payments, collect the details they need, such as your card details, e-mail address and billing country, directly on their own pages. Your card number never reaches our servers.

   We keep your token balance and its history (purchases, storage charges and returned tokens) in a customer record at Stripe that is linked to your public key. Through Stripe we may also see information about each payment, such as the amount, date, country and the e-mail address entered at checkout.

   Stripe and Link handle payment information under their own privacy policies.

7. 07Purposes of use

   We use the information described in this policy to:

   • provide the Service, including storing and retrieving files and contracts and showing your file list;
   • sell tokens, keep your balance and charge tokens for Mainnet storage;
   • respond to enquiries and to the requests described below;
   • keep the Service secure, prevent abuse and fraud, and investigate faults;
   • comply with our legal obligations.

8. 08Service providers and transfers outside Japan

   We use the following providers. The information described in this policy (mainly connection metadata, your public key and owner tag, encrypted data and payment records) is handled by them in the countries shown:

   • Vercel Inc. (United States). Hosts this website and its server functions. Location: the United States and other countries where its network operates.
   • Fly.io, Inc. (United States). Hosts our relay servers, which submit and fetch records and keep the server-side file list. Location: Japan (Tokyo region).
   • Stripe, Inc. and its affiliates, including Link (United States). Process token payments and keep the token ledger. Location: the United States and other countries.
   • WhatsOnChain (United Kingdom). A public blockchain explorer. Your browser contacts it directly to verify records independently of our relay, so it receives your IP address and the transactions or addresses being looked up. Our server also uses it for the BSV/USD rate, without sending any personal information.

   Japan’s Personal Information Protection Commission has designated the United Kingdom (together with the EU and the EEA) as having a personal information protection system equivalent to Japan’s. The United States has no such designation. The United States has no comprehensive federal privacy law; personal information is protected by sector-specific federal laws and by state laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act.

   For more on these systems, see the Commission’s survey of personal information protection systems in foreign countries (in Japanese).

   Vercel and Fly.io handle information on our behalf under their data processing terms. Stripe and Link also handle payment information as independent businesses under their own privacy policies. Each provider maintains security measures such as access controls and encryption in transit, and Stripe handles card data under the PCI DSS standard.

   Your passkey is created and stored by your device or password manager (for example iCloud Keychain or Google Password Manager). We never receive it.

9. 09Security measures

   We take the following measures to prevent the leakage, loss or damage of the information we handle:

   • By design: files, file names and contracts are encrypted in your browser, and we never hold your private key.
   • Organisational and personnel: the General Manager is responsible for the handling of personal information, and those who handle it are bound to keep it confidential. We review how information is handled when the Service changes.
   • Technical: access to our servers and provider accounts is limited to authorised people and requires authentication; requests between our servers are authenticated with secret tokens; all connections use HTTPS (TLS).
   • Physical: our servers run in our providers’ data centres, which have their own physical security controls.
   • Outside Japan: we take into account the personal information protection systems of the countries where our providers handle information (see “Service providers and transfers outside Japan”).

10. 10Your requests (disclosure, correction, deletion and more)

    You may ask us to tell you the purposes for which we use personal data we hold about you, to disclose it (including records of its provision to third parties), to correct, add to or delete it, or to stop using it or providing it to third parties. Send requests to:

    support@bitcessing.com

    Because we hold no names or contact details, we may ask you to show that you control the key concerned, for example by signing a message with it, before we can find or act on any data; if this cannot be confirmed we may be unable to act on the request. We reply without undue delay, normally by e-mail.

    Data recorded on the blockchain cannot be changed or deleted. For payment information held by Stripe or Link, you may need to use their own procedures.

    Complaints and questions about how we handle personal information can be sent to the same address.

11. 11Retention

    Data recorded on the blockchain is permanent. Once recorded, it cannot be changed or deleted by us or by anyone else. Although it is encrypted, assume it will remain public indefinitely; if a party’s private key is ever disclosed, data encrypted for that party could be read.

    Data in your browser remains until you log out or clear it. Entries in the server-side file list are kept while we provide the file list. Payment records are kept by Stripe and by us for as long as tax and accounting rules require. Server logs are kept only as long as needed for the purposes above, within our hosting providers’ retention settings.

12. 12Changes to this policy

    We may update this policy from time to time. The current version is always on this page, with the date of the last change shown at the top.

13. 13Contact

    Questions about this policy, and the requests above, can be sent by e-mail to support@bitcessing.com, or by post to:

    Bitcessing LLC7F Nihonbashi Mizuno Building1-11-12 Nihonbashi MuromachiChuo-ku, Tokyo 103-0022Japan

    Business operator: BITCESSING LLCRepresentative: Shoei Sugita (General Manager)

    Because we hold no accounts or contact details, we cannot look up you, your files or your contracts by name.

This document is a draft and may change.