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About Private Authenticator

Private Authenticator is a free two-step verification app for iPhone, with a companion app for Apple Watch, made by Pebble IT Solutions Pty Ltd in Australia. On your Home Screen its icon says PrivAuth.

Why we made it

Two-step codes protect the accounts that matter most, so the app that makes them should be the most private app on your phone. Private Authenticator was built around that: no account, no server, no adverts, no tracking, Face ID or Touch ID before every code, and backups that only you can unlock. Nothing about your accounts ever reaches Pebble IT.

It started with an itch. Continuously logging into different client cloud accounts and having to type the name into Google Authenticator each time. No tags, no recently used, and all codes fully exposed and blinking when near expiry so very hard to see the name of the codes. We felt there must be a better way. When looking at alternatives on the Apple App Store, we felt that the others were just a better mousetrap than Google Authenticator, and there was a number of suspicions on online forums about what happens with the data from the authenticators. That was it, enough was enough; we agreed there has to be a better way. We designed Private Authenticator with a technical person in mind, it was designed from a UX and performance perspective with 500 TOTP items across 25 tags. Imagine 500 TOTP items in Google Authenticator ? We provide ultimate privacy where data can be contained either to your device only (and optionally an Apple Watch) or Apple's Keychain syncronisation across your own Apple products. Biometric validation is a minimum requirement to be able to use Private Authenticator and we designed several paths for users to be able to discover and use their TOTP items. We have been using it now for several weeks ourselves at the time of writing and the ease of use and efficiency has delivered what we set out to achieve. All the while keeping everything completely anonymous and private, encryption at rest provided by Apple ensuring that the data cannot be harvested and used.

There are plans for versions on iPad, MacOS desktop, Android phones and tablets and potentially a Windows desktop version. We also have plans for some related security products, so this is just the start of an exciting journey. You can expect more privacy and security focused products from us in the coming months.

Free means free

There is no price, no subscription and no "pro" version, and there won't be. Pebble IT is a software and services company that helps businesses with Oracle, SQL and PostgreSQL and related software for businesses; Private Authenticator is something we wanted for ourselves and decided to share.

Data capture & retention

Zero data is captured by Private Authenticator outside of the TOTP items and their tags. No user information, no location information, no usage information. Nothing. Nil. Zilch. The way it should be.

Getting in touch

Credits

  • Codes and recovery keys are shown in Source Code Pro, a typeface by Adobe published under the SIL Open Font Licence 1.1, chosen because every character is unmistakable.
  • Backups are protected with Argon2, the password-hashing standard, using its reference implementation (published under the CC0 1.0 or Apache 2.0 licences).
  • The app's blue and orange are Pebble IT's own colours.

The Privacy Policy says what the app does with your information, and the Disclaimer is the app's terms in brief. Apple, iPhone, Apple Watch, Face ID, Touch ID, iCloud and Keychain are trademarks of Apple Inc. Steam and Steam Guard are trademarks of Valve Corporation. Google Authenticator is a trademark of Google LLC. Pebble IT isn't affiliated with any of them.

Continue to the Privacy Policy.