Artise

Help: privacy and security

Last updated: September 30, 2026

How Artise keeps your chats private, and what the security messages in the app mean.

How chats are end-to-end encrypted

Messages, photos, files, voice notes and calls in Artise chats are end-to-end encrypted. They're locked on the sender's device and can only be unlocked on the devices of the people in the chat. Your organization's server stores them and passes them on, but it can't read them, and neither can we.

  • Each of your devices has its own keys, which stay on it. The only copy kept elsewhere is your encrypted backup, which only your recovery key opens.
  • Ari, the assistant, is a member of the chats it's in, like any person. It can read those chats' messages and files so it can help. It can't read chats it isn't in.
  • The notes Ari keeps for a chat are stored on your organization's server. Only that chat's members can see them.
  • Notifications carry no content: your server sends Google only an event number, and the app fetches the message and decrypts it on your phone.
  • Once a chat is encrypted, encryption can't be turned off.

More detail is in our privacy notice.

Verifying your other devices

When you sign in on a new phone or computer, Artise asks you to confirm it's really you. You can do it two ways:

  • With a device you're already signed in on: accept the request there, then check that both screens show the same emoji (or scan the code).
  • With your recovery key, if you don't have your other device at hand.

Why it matters: a verified device gets the keys to read your earlier encrypted messages, and other people's apps trust what it sends. Messages from a device that isn't verified show a warning to others, and it may not be able to read your history.

If you see a device you don't recognize in your list of sessions, sign it out and change your password.

Lost every device and your recovery key? You can choose Reset identity. You keep your chats, but earlier encrypted messages can't be read any more, and the people you talk to will see that your identity was reset.

The recovery key and backups

Your recovery key is 48 letters and numbers in groups of four. It unlocks two things kept on your organization's server, encrypted so the server can't open them:

  • a backup of the keys to your encrypted messages, so a new device can read your history;
  • your digital identity, so a new device can confirm it's you.

Keep it somewhere safe outside your phone, such as a password manager or on paper. Don't share it: nobody from Artise or your organization will ever ask for it.

  • Lost it, but still signed in somewhere? Make a new one in the app's encryption settings. The old one stops working.
  • Lost it and every device? Nobody can recover it, not even us, so earlier encrypted messages can't be read on a new device. You can still reset your identity and carry on.

This is separate from Ari's nightly chat backups, which you open with your password or a recovery code emailed to you (see the privacy notice).

When someone's identity changes

Everyone in Artise has a digital identity: a key that vouches for all of their devices. When the app says "Ana's digital identity was reset", Ana made a new one. Usually she got a new phone without her recovery key, or reset it in her settings.

  • Usually there's nothing to do. The chat carries on as before.
  • Didn't expect it? Check with them another way, by phone or in person, before sharing anything sensitive. Someone who got into their account could have reset it.
  • If you had verified them, the app flags their messages until you decide. Verify them again, or choose Withdraw verification.

Your own identity only needs resetting if you've lost every device and your recovery key.

Who can see a chat's earlier messages

Each chat has a Who can read history setting, in the chat's security and privacy settings:

  • Members since invited: people see messages from the moment they were invited. Someone who joins later doesn't see what was said before.
  • Members (full history): new members can also read messages from before they joined. When the app shows "New members see history", the members' apps share the keys for earlier messages with people they invite.
  • Anyone (history is public): for open chats only. Don't use it for anything private.

Changing the setting only affects new messages, not ones already sent.

  • Someone who leaves or is removed can't see new messages. What's already on their device stays there.
  • A chat's notes and files in Ari's notes are visible to everyone in the chat right now, including people who join later.

Questions? Use the form on our home page. See also the privacy notice and terms.