Privacy
What “private” really means: encryption for families, in plain English
“Private” is the most overused word in tech. Here’s how to tell a real privacy promise from a marketing one.
September 20, 2026 · 6 min read
Almost every app says it takes your privacy seriously. The question that matters is simpler: who can open your stuff?
Three kinds of “private”
| Kind | Who can see it | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Private setting | You choose who sees it in the app, but the company can see everything. | A “friends only” post |
| Encrypted in transit and at rest | Scrambled on the way and in storage, but the company holds the keys and can unlock it. | Most cloud photo services |
| End-to-end encrypted | Scrambled on your phone before it leaves. Only devices you approve hold the keys. The company can’t unlock it. | Signal messages |
The key question
Encryption is a lock. What matters is who has a key. If the company keeps a copy of your key, it can open your data, and so can anyone who breaks into the company or forces it to hand things over. With end-to-end encryption, the company never has a key at all.
The honest trade-off
End-to-end encryption has a real cost: if you lose every device and your recovery code, nobody can get your data back. Not you, not us. Any company that says it can “reset” your encrypted data for you is holding a key. We think the trade is worth it for family memories, and we’ll be clear about it inside the app.
Where Jelly is today
- Today: your memories, photos and voice notes stay on your phone. We don’t receive them at all.
- Coming: backup to your own iCloud or Google Drive, and Family Circle sharing, both end-to-end encrypted on your phone first.
- The one exception: a print lab has to see the pages to print them. So printing only happens when you say yes to a specific order, and we explain exactly what is sent.
Every line of that is tracked on our transparency page, including what’s finished and what’s still being built.
Five questions to ask any family app
- Can your employees see my photos?
- Who holds the encryption keys?
- What happens to my data if I delete my account?
- Do you sell data or show ads?
- Which other companies receive my data, and what do they get?
If the answers aren’t easy to find, that’s an answer too.
