Security
How synoia keeps your notes safe.
Written for the person who answers your clients' security questions. Everything on this page is in place on the service today.
Last reviewed 31 October 2026.
In place today
The baseline
- Sign-in
Google or Microsoft accounts only, and no passwords. Anyone can make an account to buy a plan, but an account can do nothing until it holds a plan or is invited into a workspace, and one that buys nothing is removed after seven days.
An invitation names the person, expires after 48 hours and stops working once it's used. Your own organisation's multi-factor authentication applies when people sign in.
- Hosting
One production service on AWS in London.
The server has no open web port. Traffic reaches it through a Cloudflare tunnel that the server opens outwards. Administrator access is by SSH key from named addresses, or through AWS's own console behind multi-factor sign-in.
- In transit
Encrypted on every path: HTTPS to Cloudflare, then an encrypted tunnel to the server. Plain HTTP is redirected to HTTPS.
- At rest
Each workspace has its own encryption key, held in AWS's key service in London. Note text, files, pictures, version history and the search index are encrypted under it.
A copy of the database or a backup can't be read without that key, and one workspace's content can't be opened with another's.
- Backups
Nightly, encrypted before they leave the server, and kept for 35 days in London. The key that decrypts them isn't kept on the server.
A restore is tested on a schedule, opening each workspace's content with its own key.
- Your computers
Each member's computer holds the notes they can read, as ordinary files. Encrypting those disks is up to you: on a Mac, turn on FileVault.
- Separation
The server enforces access; the app can't grant itself anything. Stored content is tied to the workspace it belongs to.
When someone loses access, their connection ends too, including their AI's.
- Pictures
A picture has exactly the access of the folder it sits in.
The AI boundary
Your AI is you, with a record.
Each person connects their own AI. synoia decides what it can reach, and records what it does.
- Scope
Your AI connects through synoia's MCP connector, signed in as you. It reaches every channel you can, checked on every call, and nothing more.
- Writes
It can write wherever you can write. How your people use AI is your organisation's decision.
- Record
Every read and write your AI makes through synoia is in your workspace's audit log, in the person's name and the connection's. Every write is checked against the latest version of the note.
- No model
We run no AI model over your content.
- Your provider
What your AI reads goes to your AI provider, under your terms with them. Claude, for example, stores data in the US. Our London hosting covers your workspace and the sync. The AI path is yours to choose.
What your AI client can do also depends on its plan. When we checked in September 2026, ChatGPT allowed connector writes only on its business plans.
The record
Every workspace has its own audit log.
Who did what, when, and through what: the app, the website, an AI connection, or one of our operators.
- Sign-ins, invitations, and every change to roles and access.
- Every read and write an AI makes through synoia.
- Notes opened in the app, and every change made there.
- Entries hold ids, not names: no note's name or text is written into the log.
- Owners and admins read it on the website, under Activity, by person, channel, kind and date. Names are filled in as they look, and a note's or folder's name shows only to someone who can open it now.
- They can download it as a spreadsheet, with names, or as a file of the sealed entries for checking.
- Every member can see their own entries.
- Looking at the log, and downloading it, are recorded too.
- Every five minutes, new entries are sealed and copied to storage that nobody can change or delete for twelve months, us included.
- If an entry can't be written, the action is refused rather than happening unrecorded.
Operator access
Who can read your notes
Our staff don't read your content. Every time our people reach the production server, it's recorded: each login, each administrator command, and each database session, which needs a stated reason before it opens. The records leave the server within a minute, for the same write-once storage as the audit log.
An operator session opened for your workspace also appears in your workspace's own audit log.
synoia isn't end-to-end encrypted: the service has to read your notes to sync them and to answer your AI. Restricted, recorded access is what protects them from our people.
Who else is involved
The companies in the path
- AWS hosts the service, its keys and its backups, in London.
- Cloudflare sits in front of the service and carries its traffic. It decrypts traffic at its edge and re-encrypts it to our server.
- Google or Microsoft handles sign-in, whichever you use.
- Your AI provider sees what your AI reads. You choose it, under your own terms.
Questions your security team will ask
Where is our data stored, processed and backed up?
On each member's computer, as ordinary files. On our side, in one production service on AWS in London (eu-west-2), encrypted under your workspace's own key, with nightly encrypted backups kept in London for 35 days. Traffic passes through Cloudflare. What your AI reads goes to your AI provider.
Who on your side can read our content?
Our staff don't read it. Access to the production server is by SSH key from named addresses, or through AWS's own console behind multi-factor sign-in. Every login, administrator command and database session is recorded off the server, and a session opened for your workspace shows in your own audit log.
What can an AI client do, and can we restrict it?
Whatever the person could do: list, read and search notes, create and edit them, move and delete notes and folders, all within that person's access. To restrict an AI, restrict the person, or share less with them. Every read and write is attributed and logged, and every write is checked against the latest version.
How are organisations kept apart?
At the server, and by encryption. Every stored item is tied to its workspace, access is checked against the person's membership on every call, including for AI connections, and each workspace's content is encrypted under its own key.
Can we take everything and leave?
Your notes are already on your computers, as ordinary files that Obsidian opens. An owner can delete the workspace from the service. Its key is then scheduled for deletion, after which no backup of it can be read.
How do we report a vulnerability?
Email contact@synoia.app, beginning the subject line with SECURITY and a colon. Include what you found, how to reproduce it if you can, and which part it affects.
Ask us the hard questions.
You get straight answers from the people who build and run the service.