When you secure your digital life with Passport Prime, you are in full control of your money and data. This means you are also completely responsible for ensuring your money and data are backed up safely and securely, such that it is not lost to any single point of failure.

Passport Prime Data

Before we explore how Passport Prime helps you secure your money and data, it's important to spell out the two different types of information being managed, and how they interact with one another.

Master Key

The master key is the primary secret that secures access to the Bitcoin and data stored on Passport Prime. The master key should never be shared with anyone, unless you want to allow them full access to your money and data. The master key should never be stored in a complete state on any online device and you should never take a photo of it.

Settings & Data

The Settings & Data backup on Passport Prime includes your user-defined settings and the data stored by each app (account labels, configurations, 2FA codes, security key registrations, etc.). It does not include the installed app bundles themselves. A Settings & Data backup file saved from the device is named settings-YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.tar and is encrypted by the master key. It is not possible to access the data inside this file without knowledge of the Passport Prime master key.

Important exclusion: the contents of files stored in the Files app (Internal and Airlock) are NOT in the Settings & Data backup. Those files live only on the physical device. If you lose, damage, or wipe Passport Prime, those files cannot be recovered through Magic Backups. Keep a separate copy of anything you can't afford to lose, see the Files app docs for details.

Passport Prime Magic Backups

Magic Backups are our simple yet extremely secure method to ensure you never lose access to your Passport Prime data. Despite the unrivaled convenience offered, Magic Backups are constructed in such a way that neither Foundation, nor your chosen cloud provider (Google or Apple) can steal your funds or see your data.

Master Key

Magic Backups store critical Passport Prime master key data in a 2-of-3 Shamir setup. This means that the master key is split into three parts, but only two are required to restore the key in a recovery scenario:

• One part is stored by Envoy, encrypted, and backed up to your iCloud Keychain or Android Auto Backup. (Passport Prime and Envoy handle this automatically during onboarding)
• A second part is stored on one of the provided Keycards. (You will be prompted to hold this to the back of Passport Prime during onboarding)
• The third part is stored on another one of the provided Keycards.

The third Keycard in the box is a spare.

To ensure optimal security and redundancy, never store the two Keycards in the same geographical location. See Keycards for how to store and look after them.

Even when leveraging Magic Backups, users are also free to back up their master key using the BIP39 seed word format from the device settings at any time. Users choosing to do this should exercise extreme care when storing their master key in this format as a compromise of this single item could result in complete loss of funds.

Settings & Data

The SHA256 hash of the Passport Prime master key is sent to Envoy via QuantumLink to be used as an anonymous identifier on the Foundation server. This is how we know which encrypted file belongs to which user without us needing to collect any personal information. All subsequent metadata backups (settings, Bitcoin account data, multisig configurations, 2FA codes, FIDO2 security key registrations, and similar app metadata) are encrypted with the Passport Prime master key and sent to the Foundation server for storage. The contents of files stored in the Files app (Internal and Airlock) are NOT included in this metadata backup, those file contents live only on the physical device and are not recoverable from Magic Backups. See the Files app docs for guidance on keeping a separate copy of important documents. While Magic Backups is on, this backup is updated automatically every 12 hours, and whenever you tap Back up now in Settings > Backups. Anything added since the last backup is not yet included, so tap Back up now after important changes.

Only the person with knowledge of the Passport Prime master key can retrieve and decrypt the encrypted metadata stored on the Foundation server. This means that even Foundation cannot see the contents of the data. Users can also save an offline copy of this file to external storage, but restoring a local file is not available yet on KeyOS 1.4.x (see Manual Recovery ).

Magic Recovery

To recover Passport Prime from a Magic Backup:

User interaction:

1. On the Master Key setup screen, tap Restore from Backup.
2. Choose Restore from Keycards.
3. Hold any Keycard to the back of Passport Prime.

Automatic steps that follow:

4. Passport Prime checks for a second key part stored on Envoy (and backed up to your personal cloud).
5. The master key is reconstructed and saved to Passport Prime.
6. Passport Prime sends a cryptographic hash of the master key through QuantumLink to Envoy.
7. Envoy queries the Foundation server to search for the corresponding encrypted settings & data backup file.
8. The file is downloaded to Envoy, then sent back to Passport Prime via QuantumLink.
9. Passport Prime decrypts the file using the restored master key and restores all settings & data.

Passport Prime Manual Backups

Manual backups remove any link to your personal cloud and the Foundation server for encrypted data storage. Manual backups are not recommended for beginners.

To choose manual backups, tap the Advanced button in the top right of the Create Magic Backup screen on Passport Prime during onboarding. This screen appears whether you create a new Master Key or restore one from seed words or a SeedQR. Your Envoy settings are not affected, so you can keep using Envoy as a mobile Bitcoin wallet with its own Magic Backup while opting out of Magic Backups on Passport Prime itself.

Master Key

Using the manual backup option during onboarding allows you to choose between the following options to back up the Passport Prime master key:

1. A 2-of-3 Shamir setup using the three provided Keycards. This means that the master key is split into three parts, but only two are required to restore the key in a recovery scenario. To ensure optimal security and redundancy, never store the Keycards in the same geographical location.
2. Writing down the BIP39-compliant seed word representation of the Passport Prime Master Key.

Settings & Data

Manual users can save an encrypted Settings & Data backup file from Settings > Backups > Advanced Backups > Settings & Data Backup on Passport Prime. Store the file outside of Passport Prime, eg on a microSD card, USB thumb drive, or personal cloud storage.

Manual Recovery

To recover Passport Prime from a manual backup:

User interaction:

1. On the Master Key setup screen, tap Restore from Backup.
2. Choose the option you wish to use to restore the master key: Scan Seed QR, Enter Seed Words or Restore from Keycards. For a SeedQR or seed words, Passport Prime first shows a We Recommend a New Master Key dialog; tap Restore to continue.
3. Follow the steps on screen to restore the master key using your chosen method.
4. Restore a settings-YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.tar backup file from external storage. - COMING SOON