Legal
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Important: Not legal advice
CairnVault is an organizational tool to help you record and communicate information about your accounts, assets, and wishes. It is not legal advice and is not a substitute for an attorney, a will, a trust, or any other formal estate-planning document. Nothing on cairnvault.app constitutes legal counsel. Please consult a qualified estate-planning attorney for guidance on your specific situation. You use CairnVault at your own discretion.
CairnVault™ is a digital-legacy organization tool operated by CairnVault. It helps people record where their accounts, assets, and important documents are located, and deliver that information to trusted loved ones after they pass away. Your vault is encrypted on your own device before anything reaches CairnVault’s servers — we store only the encrypted result.
You must be at least 18 years old to use CairnVault. By creating an account or using the service in any way, you represent that you are 18 years of age or older. CairnVault is not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information from minors. If we learn that a user is under 18, we will delete their account.
CairnVault is an organizational and communication tool. It helps you compile a readable record of your digital and non-digital assets and share it securely with the people you designate. It is not legal advice, not a law firm, not a will, not a trust, and not a substitute for formal estate-planning documents or the advice of a qualified professional. The information you store in your vault has no special legal standing — its value is practical and organizational, not legal.
CairnVault does not provide tax advice, financial advice, probate services, or any professional services of any kind. You are responsible for seeking qualified advice for your specific needs.
Your vault is encrypted on your device using a key that is derived from your master password and your Secret Key. That key never leaves your device. CairnVault’s servers receive and store only the encrypted ciphertext — an unreadable blob without the key. CairnVault cannot read, search, or interpret the contents of your vault, and cannot hand your vault contents over to any third party (including in response to a legal demand) because we do not hold the decryption key.
This design is a deliberate security choice. It means the privacy of your vault contents is protected even in the event of a server breach, a legal subpoena, or an insider threat at CairnVault.
Access to your vault requires two credentials: your master password and your Secret Key. If you lose both credentials, your vault data is permanently and irrecoverably lost. Because CairnVault does not hold your encryption key, there is no password-reset mechanism, no account-recovery process, and no way for CairnVault to restore your access under any circumstances.
You are solely responsible for safeguarding your master password and Secret Key. We recommend storing your Secret Key in a password manager and printing an Emergency Kit to keep somewhere secure (for example, with your physical documents or in a safe). By using CairnVault, you acknowledge this design and accept the risk that losing both credentials means permanent loss of your vault data.
CairnVault™ is an unregistered trademark of CairnVault. You may not use the name “CairnVault,” the CairnVault logo, or any confusingly similar name or mark in connection with any product, service, or promotional material without prior written permission from CairnVault.
You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you store in your vault, for keeping your credentials secure and accessible to you, for keeping your contact designations current and accurate, and for ensuring that the people you name in your vault have agreed to take on that role. CairnVault is not responsible for any failure to deliver vault access to your intended contacts if those contacts are unreachable, have declined, or have not completed the release process.
You agree not to use CairnVault to store information related to any illegal activity; to impersonate any person or entity; to attempt to gain unauthorized access to any part of the service or another user’s data; to interfere with or disrupt the service, servers, or networks connected to the service; or to use the service in any way that violates applicable local, national, or international law or regulation.
The CairnVault software, website, design, copy, and all content other than your vault contents are owned by CairnVault and are protected by applicable intellectual property law. Your vault contents remain yours. By using the service, you grant CairnVault only the limited technical rights necessary to store, transmit, and (where applicable) deliver your encrypted vault as described in these Terms — nothing more.
CairnVault is provided “as is” and “as available,” without any warranty of any kind, express or implied. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, CairnVault disclaims all warranties, including (without limitation) implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, free of harmful components, or that any particular feature will remain available. You use CairnVault at your own risk.
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, CairnVault and its officers, directors, employees, contractors, and agents will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages — including loss of data, loss of profits, or loss of access to a vault — arising out of or related to your use of the service, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
Our total cumulative liability to you for any claim arising out of or related to these Terms or the service will not exceed the greater of (a) the total amount you paid to CairnVault in the twelve months preceding the claim, or (b) $10 USD if you have not made any payment.
A plan for the end of a life has to outlast the company that stores it. So we make this commitment: if CairnVault ever decides to discontinue the service, we will (a) give you at least six months’ advance notice, by email to the address on your account and by a prominent notice at cairnvault.app; (b) keep the service running normally throughout that notice period; and (c) provide, during that period, a way to export the complete contents of your plan so you can take it with you.
Because your vault is encrypted on your own device before it ever reaches us, at no point — including any wind-down — could we read, sell, or hand your readable information to anyone else.
CairnVault may revise these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will post the updated Terms at cairnvault.app with a new effective date. If you continue using the service after a revision takes effect, you accept the revised Terms. We will take reasonable steps to notify you of material changes — for example, by emailing the address you provided at signup.
Questions about these Terms? Reach us at support@cairnvault.app.