Can a photo vault app see your pictures?

What zero knowledge means here

Zero knowledge is a design rule. The company that makes the app holds nothing that can open your library. In York Vault, that is true in four ways:

• No account. We hold no email address, no password and no profile for you.
• No key. Your keys stay on your devices, guarded by the Secure Enclave on iPhone or Android Keystore on Android.
• No library server. We run no server that stores your library. Your free backup goes to your own iCloud or Google Drive.
• No readable names. File names, album names, counts, sizes and dates never leave your phone in readable form.

The test for this rule is an outside audit. It checks that no code path sends a key or plain content off the device.

Who can read what

Data	Who can read it
Your photos, videos and files	Only your devices
File names, album names, dates, places	Only your devices
Your code	Nobody. York Vault never stores it.
Your recovery key	Only you. York Vault shows it once at setup.
Your iCloud or Google Drive backup	Encrypted pieces. Apple or Google holds no key.
York Cloud on Pro	Encrypted data on our servers. We hold no key.
A private share link	Encrypted data on our share server, plus expiry counters

The free backup on Android goes to the Drive app data folder. Google says only the app that made the folder can read it. Google also says its contents “are hidden from the user and from other Google Drive apps.” York Vault encrypts each item before it goes there. See encrypted backup.

Why no account matters

An account is a second door into your library. If a company can reset your password by email, then someone with access to your email can get in too. York Vault has no such door. Your code and your recovery key are the only ways in.

Purchases go through the App Store or Google Play. York Vault reads your plan from the store, so you never type an email address in the app.

The cost of this design is real. If you lose both your code and your recovery key, we cannot help you get in. The one exception is the optional 72-hour recovery through your Apple Account or Google account. It is off until you turn it on. Read forgot your code.

Names and details stay unreadable

Many vault apps encrypt the photo but leave the details in plain text. York Vault does not store a file name, album name, count, size or date in readable form. That is true on disk, in your backup, in logs, in crash reports and in analytics. York Vault also pads file sizes to fixed steps, so the size of a piece does not reveal the file.

A test searches the app files, the backup records and a crash report for a known file name. The test passes only with zero hits.

How can you check it?

You do not have to take our word for it. These checks need no special tools:

1. Turn on airplane mode, then open York Vault. Your library opens. Opening it needs no server of ours.
2. On iPhone, watch the network. Go to Settings, then Privacy & Security, then App Privacy Report, and turn it on. Apple lists the domains each app contacted in the past 7 days.
3. Read the design. Our security page has the key design. It also lists the white paper, the outside audit and the source code.
4. Test support. Write to support with a question. Nobody asks for your code or your recovery key. If someone asks, it is not us. See contact support.

The App Privacy Report shows the services York Vault talks to, such as your backup and our measurement partner. It does not show what each request holds. To see exactly what the measurement tool gets, read ad measurement and privacy.

What zero knowledge does not cover

Zero knowledge is about your library, not about every signal. Support sees the messages you send. The ad measurement tool gets a fixed list of events, such as an install. It never gets an item or a name. For a complete list, read what we can and cannot see. For the encryption itself, read end-to-end encryption.