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Podkey Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-06-16

Podkey is a browser extension that holds a Nostr/did:nostr key on your device and uses it to sign Nostr events (NIP-07) and to authenticate to Solid pods over NIP-98. It is a local signer: your key never leaves your device, and Podkey has no servers, no accounts, and no analytics.

What Podkey stores, and where

All data is stored locally in the browser's extension storage. Nothing is sent to the Podkey developers or to any third party.

Data Where Notes
Private key chrome.storage.local, encrypted Stored only as an AES-256-GCM ciphertext, wrapped by a key derived from your passphrase with scrypt. The plaintext key is never written to disk.
Private key (unlocked) chrome.storage.session, in-memory After you unlock with your passphrase, the decrypted key is held in memory for the browser session so signing is fast. It is cleared when the browser closes.
Public key chrome.storage.local Your did:nostr identity. Not secret.
Trusted origins chrome.storage.local The sites you have approved to sign without re-prompting, and an optional per-site auto-sign preference. You can revoke any of them from the popup.

There is no telemetry, no tracking, no advertising identifiers, and no remote logging. Podkey collects none of your browsing history or page content.

How your key is used

  • Signing (NIP-07 signEvent, nip44.encrypt/decrypt) and Solid authentication (NIP-98) happen entirely inside the extension's background service worker. The raw private key is never exposed to web pages: only the resulting signature, ciphertext/plaintext, or Authorization header crosses to the page.
  • A site you have not approved triggers a consent prompt on its first request. Closing the prompt, or a 60-second timeout, denies it.
  • Podkey makes no network requests of its own. A NIP-98 Authorization header is attached only to requests you initiate to a Solid/Nostr server you have trusted; the data goes to that server, under your control, not to Podkey.

Permissions, and why they are needed

  • storage: to keep the encrypted key, your public key, and your trusted sites locally, as described above.
  • Host access (<all_urls>): Podkey is a NIP-07 signer, so it injects a window.nostr provider into pages and, for sites you have trusted, attaches NIP-98 auth to your own requests. This requires script access to the pages where you use a Nostr/Solid app. Podkey does not read, collect, or transmit page content or browsing history; host access is used solely to expose the signer and to intercept auth for origins you have explicitly approved.

Data sharing and retention

  • Podkey does not sell or share any data. There is no data broker, no third-party processor, and no off-device transfer of your key or activity.
  • All data remains on your device until you delete it. Removing the extension, or using "Forget key" in the popup, erases the stored vault, public key, and trusted sites. Back up your private key before doing so. Without a backup it cannot be recovered.

Your control

  • Unlock / lock your key on demand from the popup.
  • Review and revoke trusted sites at any time.
  • Export your private key (after unlocking) to back it up.
  • Forget the key entirely to start over.

Contact

Podkey is open source under AGPL-3.0. Questions, issues, or security reports: https://github.com/JavaScriptSolidServer/podkey/issues.

This policy may be updated as the extension evolves; the "Last updated" date above reflects the current version. Material changes will be noted in the project CHANGELOG.