How Portal protects your files.

Your phone and computer connect with WebRTC. Whenever a direct route exists — same Wi‑Fi, or most home and mobile networks — file bytes flow straight between the two devices over DTLS-encrypted data channels. Portal's servers only help the devices find each other.

When networks block direct routes, traffic passes through a TURN relay. The relay forwards encrypted packets it cannot decrypt, and it stores nothing.

The QR code contains a single-use, two-minute token and a secret that is generated in your browser and never sent to any server. After connecting, both devices prove they know that secret by signing the fingerprints of the encrypted session itself. If anyone — including a compromised Portal server — tried to sit in the middle, the fingerprints would differ and the connection would be refused.

The phone always asks before sharing anything, and the connection can be ended from either side or revoked from your account at any time.

Files move in 1 MB blocks. Each block is checked with SHA‑256 before it is written, so corruption is detected and the block is fetched again. If the connection drops, Portal resumes with only the blocks that are still missing.

The searchable index of your files is kept on your phone. Standard search needs no AI. With AI search on, only the text you type is sent to the configured model; organizations can disable external AI processing entirely, and customer files are never used for training.

Anything Portal extracts from a document — a merchant, an amount, an invoice number — must appear in that document's text or it is discarded. Portal does not invent metadata.

Every organization's data is isolated with database row-level security, so authorization is enforced by the database, not only by application code. Roles cannot be escalated, approvals follow separation of duties, and the audit log is append-only and hash-chained so tampering is detectable.

Browsers cannot read a phone's storage, so sharing from a phone's browser is limited to files you pick. iOS restricts apps to their own storage and your photo library. Portal will always tell you what it can and can't reach.