Privacy & encryption
Townwell is built around a simple idea: your community's content belongs to the members of that community, not to the platform. Here's how that works in plain language.
Your content is encrypted before it leaves your device
When you write a post, schedule an event, upload a document, or send a message, Townwell encrypts it in your browser using a key that only authorized members have. The encrypted result — not the readable text — is what's sent to and stored on Townwell's servers.
What this means in practice:
- The server stores only ciphertext (scrambled data) for your posts, events, documents, and messages. We can't read them.
- We don't mine or sell your content. There's no advertising, no algorithmic feed built from your data, and no data broker on the other end.
- Content only appears to the members you've invited to a community. Even Townwell can't decrypt it without members' keys.
What the server can see
End-to-end encryption protects your content, but some things must stay readable for Townwell to function. The server can see metadata such as:
- who is a member of which community and their role,
- timestamps and message/activity routing,
- file sizes and types (needed to run storage limits),
- visibility settings (needed so only the right people see a post or document).
This metadata is minimal and is used to operate the service, not to profile you.
Signing in, passkeys, and your recovery key
Each account has a private key that is kept on your device and used to decrypt your content. It's protected by your password and your recovery key.
- Passkeys make signing in fast and more secure on your device. A passkey is just a login factor — it never holds or unwraps your encryption keys.
- Your password is the secret that unlocks your private key.
- Your recovery key is a one-time backup. If you forget your password, the recovery key is the only way to get back into your data — because Townwell can't reset it for you (if it could, it could also read your content).
Treat your recovery key like a password and store it somewhere safe. Anyone who has it can recover your account.
Direct messages
Direct messages between members are end-to-end encrypted with a key shared only among the participants of that conversation. Townwell stores only the encrypted messages and the (non-secret) metadata of who's chatting with whom.
Deleting your account
You can delete your account from Settings. Deleting your personal data and encryption keys is irreversible. Content you authored in shared communities (and conversations) is kept but anonymized — it shows up as "Deleted member" — so communities aren't broken by someone leaving. Deleting your account happens through a short grace period so you can change your mind.
The bottom line
Townwell is designed so that your community's conversations stay yours — and out of the hands of anyone else, including us.