# End-to-end encryption: legal and business case

**Status:** Decision research, not legal advice. July 2026.

## Question

Would client-side end-to-end encryption (E2EE) of synchronized task content create enough legal, trust, marketing, or revenue benefit to justify new-device approval/recovery UX and the permanent-loss risk of a user-held key?

## Current baseline

- Glide already sends network traffic over TLS, and Convex states that all user data is encrypted at rest.[^convex-state]
- Synced task fields are nevertheless readable inside Convex today. An administrator with database access can read task titles and metadata.
- Free/local-only users never upload task content. Paid Sync therefore currently changes the privacy model from device-only plaintext to provider-readable cloud plaintext.
- Glide's backend only needs an owner, random task ID, and conflict/version envelope. It does not need to inspect task content, making task-payload E2EE technically well matched to the product.

## Legal and risk-management benefits

### Stronger security-by-design evidence

GDPR Article 25 requires appropriate technical and organizational safeguards based on risk, state of the art, and implementation cost. Article 32 explicitly lists encryption and pseudonymization among appropriate measures.[^gdpr]

E2EE would be unusually strong evidence that Glide minimized access to free-form task content. It would not itself establish GDPR compliance, eliminate the need for a lawful basis, or remove rights and processor obligations.

### Reduced breach impact

GDPR Article 34 does not require communication to affected individuals when measures such as encryption make breached data unintelligible to unauthorized people.[^gdpr] This is not a blanket breach safe harbor: incident assessment, documentation, and potentially supervisory-authority notification can remain necessary, and account/activity metadata remains readable.

California Civil Code §1798.150's private action is expressly framed around specified **nonencrypted and nonredacted** personal information or email-plus-credential data.[^california] Applicability depends on the entity, incident, and statutory data category; task encryption does not protect Clerk credentials or automatically eliminate California or other state obligations.

Practical risk reduction is broader than formal notification rules: a stolen Convex export containing authenticated ciphertext is less harmful than one containing readable personal task content.

### Reduced privileged-access exposure

E2EE can make task content unavailable to Glide operators, Convex administrators, compromised dashboard accounts, database exports, and ordinary legal-production workflows. Glide would still be able—and sometimes required—to provide ciphertext and account metadata it possesses.

This narrows what Glide must secure and what a database-only compromise exposes. It does not hide identity and billing data from Clerk or RevenueCat.

## What E2EE does not solve

- Encrypted or pseudonymous data associated with an account can remain personal data. GDPR Recital 26 says pseudonymized data that can be attributed using additional information remains information about an identifiable person.[^gdpr]
- Convex would still see record counts, owner/account identifiers, random task IDs, update times, and entitlement state unless separately redesigned.
- Clerk would still process authentication/profile information; RevenueCat and Apple would still process purchase information.
- Access, deletion, export, retention, vendor-management, and incident-response duties remain.
- Apple privacy-label answers do not automatically disappear. Apple says developers must disclose data collected by them or third-party partners and defines collection around off-device transmission that remains accessible beyond the real-time request.[^apple-privacy] Whether inaccessible ciphertext counts as a particular collected data type should be answered conservatively and reviewed rather than assumed.
- Adding application-layer AES requires a fresh Apple export-compliance determination.

## Marketing and revenue upside

### A coherent paid-Sync promise

The strongest product argument is not generic security. It is consistency:

> Free Glide is private because tasks stay on your device. Paid Glide Sync keeps that privacy while making tasks available on your devices.

Without E2EE, upgrading to paid Sync is a privacy regression. With E2EE, privacy becomes part of the paid value proposition rather than a reason not to subscribe.

Credible claims could include:

- “Task content is end-to-end encrypted.”
- “Only your authorized devices can read synced tasks.”
- “Glide cannot read your task titles.”

Claims should explicitly be limited to task content. “All data is end-to-end encrypted,” “anonymous,” or “zero knowledge” would be inaccurate while identity, entitlement, and activity metadata remain visible.

### Potential conversion and retention value

E2EE may improve conversion among users whose task lists include work, health, relationship, financial, or other sensitive material. It can also create trust and reduce hesitation around enabling Sync.

There is no project-specific evidence yet that this audience is large enough to improve conversion or support a higher price. Encryption is more likely to strengthen the existing $2/month Sync proposition than independently justify a price increase.

### Longer-term market access

Content-blind storage can help future conversations with privacy-conscious professionals and organizations. It does not provide SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, or enterprise compliance by itself. Enterprise recovery, legal hold, organization administration, collaboration, and audit requirements can conflict with strict user-only keys.

## Costs and revenue risks

- New devices need approval from an existing device or a recovery secret.
- Losing every approved device and the recovery secret means permanent cloud-data loss.
- Recovery failures create support burden, refund pressure, churn, and negative reviews.
- Encryption prevents server-side search, content support/debugging, notification previews, AI processing, and similar features unless performed on-device or through explicit opt-in decryption.
- Key rotation, device revocation, migrations, corrupted ciphertext, recovery education, and cryptographic testing become permanent product responsibilities.
- A weak or inaccurate E2EE claim increases legal risk. In its Zoom action, the FTC alleged deception because Zoom advertised end-to-end encryption while retaining keys that could access meeting content.[^ftc-zoom]

## Alternatives

### 1. Envelope encryption with a Glide-controlled KMS key

Encrypt payloads before placing them in Convex and keep decryption keys in a separate managed key system.

- Seamless new-device UX.
- Protects against database-only access/export.
- Glide can technically decrypt, so it cannot support an “even Glide cannot read tasks” claim.
- Smaller operational and marketing benefit than E2EE, but still a meaningful defense-in-depth control.

### 2. True E2EE with recovery code only

- Strong confidentiality and relatively simple protocol.
- Highest onboarding/recovery friction.

### 3. True E2EE with device approval plus recovery fallback

- New device displays/scans a QR code and an existing approved device transfers a wrapped account key.
- Recovery code handles lost-device cases.
- Best practical balance, with the largest implementation surface.

## Recommendation

Glide has a stronger case for E2EE than a typical task app because:

1. free/local-only privacy is already central to the architecture;
2. paid Sync is the only path that exposes task content to a server;
3. the backend does not need plaintext content; and
4. there are no public production Sync users to migrate.

Proceed only if Glide is willing to make privacy a durable product promise, not a launch checkbox. The recommended model is encrypted task payloads with existing-device approval and a recovery-code fallback. Keep synchronization envelope and entitlement metadata clear, and market the feature narrowly as **task-content E2EE**.

Before implementation, validate the UX and demand:

1. Prototype the new-device unlock/recovery screens without cryptography.
2. Test them with prospective Sync users.
3. Compare the existing Sync pitch with a “Private Sync / even Glide cannot read tasks” version.
4. Measure comprehension, purchase intent, recovery-code completion, and concern about permanent loss.
5. Obtain an independent cryptographic design review and legal review of final claims.

## Sources

[^convex-state]: Convex, [Status and Guarantees](https://docs.convex.dev/production/state) (“All user data in Convex is encrypted at rest”).
[^gdpr]: European Union, [Regulation (EU) 2016/679](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj/eng), especially Recital 26 and Articles 25, 32, and 34.
[^california]: California Legislature, [Civil Code §1798.150](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=1798.150.&lawCode=CIV).
[^apple-privacy]: Apple, [App privacy details on the App Store](https://developer.apple.com/app-store/app-privacy-details/).
[^ftc-zoom]: Federal Trade Commission, [FTC Requires Zoom to Enhance its Security Practices](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2020/11/ftc-requires-zoom-enhance-its-security-practices-part-settlement), Nov. 9, 2020.
