Your account
A SILNT account has no password, email address or phone number. It is the identity your phone creates from your recovery phrase. On our server it consists of a mailbox that delivers your messages and, if you claimed one, a public @handle. If you have an @handle, the app also registers a Lightning address such as name@silnt.net with Breez, a payment service.
Delete from your phone
Open SILNT on your main phone, go to Settings and tap Erase this device. If your wallet holds funds, check that you have your recovery phrase first. SILNT does not hold your money, and without the phrase nobody can recover it.
On Android, while your keys are still on the phone, Erase removes from our server and from Breez:
- the @handle claimed on this phone, which is released so it no longer points to you
- the server mailbox of every identity on the phone, including Second life identities, with any messages still waiting in it
- the notification registration held with each mailbox
- your name@silnt.net Lightning address
It then deletes the keys, messages, contacts, wallet files and settings on the phone. If the server cannot be reached, the app lists what may be left and lets you try again or erase anyway.
On iPhone, Erase releases the @handle claimed on this phone and deletes the server mailbox and notification registration of the identity you are using. Erase also asks whether to delete that identity's encrypted iCloud backup. It does not yet remove other Second life identities' @handles, mailboxes or iCloud backups, or your Lightning address. If a step fails, the app warns you when your @handle or iCloud backup may be left, but not when the mailbox delete failed.
If you set up your current phone by restoring your recovery phrase and you have an @handle, first claim the same @handle again in Edit profile, as described under If you lost your phone. Otherwise Erase cannot release the handle, and the server does not delete a mailbox while a handle points to it, so the mailbox stays.
Erasing a linked device removes only that device's data. Use your main phone to delete the account.
If you lost your phone
If you still have your recovery phrase, restore it on any phone. If you had an @handle, claim the same @handle again in Edit profile: after a restore the app does not know your handle until you claim it, and Erase releases only a handle claimed on that phone. Then use Erase this device. This is the fastest way, and it proves the account is yours.
If you do not have the phrase, write to privacy@fantomlabs.io and ask us to release your @handle or delete your mailbox. Because there is no password, the only proof of ownership we can check is your identity keys, and only your recovery phrase holds them. Tell us the handle and anything else that links it to you, such as when you claimed it. We will tell you what we can verify. We release a handle or delete a mailbox only when the evidence shows it is yours, and without the phrase we may not be able to.
The server deletes a mailbox on its own only after 180 days in which nobody has used it, and only if nothing is attached to it: no @handle, no notification registration, no published keys for starting new chats and no waiting messages. The app keeps a notification registration and published keys on every mailbox it uses, so a lost phone's mailbox usually stays until you erase it or we delete it on request. A claimed @handle stays until it is released.
What the server keeps, and for how long
- Handle history, permanently. Each claim and release of an @handle is a signed public record of the handle, the identity key and mailbox it pointed to, and when. We keep this history by design, so anyone can check that a handle was never quietly moved to someone else's key. After you release a handle, its history shows the release.
- Deleted mailbox identifier, 180 days. After a mailbox is deleted, the server keeps its identifier and its public authentication key for 180 days, so no one else can register the same address and receive messages meant for you.
- Invitations, up to 30 days. Invitations you created expire within 30 days. Each keeps the identifier of the mailbox that created it for as long as it lasts, to enforce the invitation limit per mailbox. These records are not deleted with the mailbox.
- Messages waiting for delivery, up to 30 days. Encrypted messages you sent stay in the recipient's mailbox until their app collects them, or for 30 days. Encrypted group messages stay in the group's channel for up to 30 days.
- Media uploads, up to 90 days. Encrypted photos, voice notes and files you sent stay for up to 90 days so recipients can download them. Each upload record keeps the identifier of the mailbox that uploaded it for the same period, to enforce the storage limit per mailbox. These records are not deleted with the mailbox.
What deletion cannot reach
Erase does not remove messages, photos or payments on other people's phones. On Android it does not remove backup files you exported. On iPhone, a SILNT iCloud backup you chose to keep stays in your iCloud. Breez and other payment services keep their own payment records; the data privacy guide lists them. Your wallet funds stay on the payment networks, and your recovery phrase still controls them.
The newsletter is separate from the app. To leave it or have your entry deleted, see the privacy policy.
Contact
Questions about deleting your data: privacy@fantomlabs.io. The privacy policy describes everything SILNT handles.