Future of private note taking – End-to-end encryption

Personal note-taking has undergone a digital transformation in recent years. While paper notebooks were once the primary way people took notes, apps, and cloud-based services have become increasingly popular for capturing thoughts, ideas, to-do lists, and more. However, as our note-taking habits have gone digital, privacy concerns have also grown.

End-to-end encryption is emerging as a solution to keep personal notes private while still allowing the convenience of the cloud. E2EE ensures only the note taker can access the contents, even if the notes are stored on a third-party service.

Rise of digital note-taking

Digital note-taking has steadily grown in popularity over the past decade. The reasons are plentiful – apps and web services make it easy to take, organize, search, and access notes from any device. Features like tagging, cross-linking between notes, and multimedia support also improve the functionality of digital notes. The cloud allows notes to be available across all devices logged into the same account. Millennials and Gen Z have especially embraced digital note-keeping. A survey by Pollfish found that 65% of millennials and 72% of Gen Z rely on mobile note-taking apps and services. The portability, flexibility, and searchability make going digital appealing versus traditional paper notetaking. However, the survey also found 60% of respondents were concerned about the privacy of their mobile notes.

Risks of unencrypted digital notes

• Data breaches – Any app or service that stores notes in the cloud could be vulnerable to malicious attacks. Hacks could expose private notes.
• Third-party access – Employees of a note service can potentially view your notes. Terms of service often grant broad rights to user content.
• Government surveillance – Digital notes have fewer privacy protections than paper. Governments can subpoena companies to hand over user notes.
• Cross-device tracking – Notes could be used to link together profiles and behavior across devices back to one person.
• Permanent storage – Unlike paper that can be shredded, digital notes exist indefinitely and could come back to haunt you.
• Lack of control – Once notes are in the cloud, it’s hard to control or delete them completely. You must trust the provider.

Privacy promise of end-to-end encryption

End-to-end encryption solves the privacy pitfalls of cloud-based digital note-taking. With E2EE, notes are encrypted before they leave your device and only decrypted when you access them. Not even the service provider stores or has access to the decryption keys. This prevents your private note from being accessed by anyone but you.

• Complete privacy – No one but the note-taker can read the content. Your thoughts remain confidential.
• Provider protection – The service itself cannot view user notes, insulating them from government data requests.
• Data breach resistance – Encrypted notes are useless to hackers without the keys to decrypt them.
• No permanent record – Since providers only store encrypted text, deleted notes are essentially destroyed when you delete the keys.
• Future-proofing – Encryption ensures old notes remain private even if encryption is cracked in the future.

E2EE puts note-takers back in full control. Your notes essentially become “dark data” invisible to everyone else. This peace of mind is why notes are going the way of encrypted messaging and video chat.