Frequently Asked Questions

Kintact is a secure digital vault designed to store and provide instant access to your family's emergency contact information. It works by allowing you to create a family vault with a unique 4-digit PIN. You can then add family members with their contact details.

During an emergency, anyone with your family PIN can access the emergency contacts without needing to log in or remember complex passwords. The service is completely free and designed to be simple enough for anyone to use, from children to grandparents.

To create a family vault:

1. Click on "Manage Family" on the homepage
2. Select "Create Family Vault"
3. Create a 4-digit PIN (make sure it's something you'll remember but isn't easily guessable)
4. Add yourself as the first family member
5. Complete the setup process

Once completed, you can start adding other family members to your vault. Remember to share your PIN only with trusted family members who might need emergency access.

Yes, Kintact is completely free to use with no hidden fees or premium tiers. We believe that emergency preparedness should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their financial situation.

We're able to offer Kintact for free because we're a small team passionate about helping families stay connected during emergencies. We may introduce optional premium features in the future, but the core functionality of storing and accessing emergency contacts will always remain free.

No, Kintact is a web-based application that works directly in your browser on any device (smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops). There's no need to download or install anything.

This approach has several benefits:

• You can access your emergency contacts from any device with internet access
• No storage space required on your device
• Automatic updates - you always have the latest version
• No compatibility issues between different operating systems

For easier access, you can bookmark the Kintact website or add it to your home screen on mobile devices.

To add family members to your vault:

1. Log in to your family vault by entering your PIN and completing the verification steps
2. Navigate to the dashboard
3. Scroll to the "Add Family Member" section
4. Fill in the required information (name, relation, gender, phone number)
5. Optionally add an email address
6. Toggle the "Show in emergency contacts" switch based on your preference
7. Click "Add Member"

You can add as many family members as you need. For security reasons, you'll need to log in each time you want to add or modify members.

Yes, you can edit or delete family members at any time. Here's how:

To edit a member: Currently, Kintact doesn't allow direct editing of member information for security reasons. Instead, you can delete the member and re-add them with the correct information.

To delete a member: Log in to your dashboard, find the member in your family list, and click the trash can icon. Confirm the deletion when prompted.

Important: The family creator (the person who set up the vault) cannot be deleted. If you need to change the creator's information significantly, you may need to create a new family vault.

The "Show in emergency contacts" toggle determines whether a family member appears in the emergency contact list when someone accesses your vault using only the family PIN.

When this option is enabled (toggled on), the member will be visible to anyone who enters your family PIN in the Emergency Access section. This is ideal for immediate family members who should be contacted in any emergency.

When this option is disabled (toggled off), the member will not appear in emergency results. They'll still be part of your family vault and visible when you log in to manage your family, but won't be shown to others using emergency access. This is useful for adding friends, doctors, or extended family members who shouldn't be contacted in every emergency situation.

You can change this setting at any time by logging in to your dashboard and toggling the switch for each member.

Unfortunately, for security reasons, we cannot recover or reset forgotten family PINs. This is a deliberate design choice to ensure that no one - not even Kintact staff - can access your family's emergency contacts without authorization.

If you've forgotten your PIN, you'll need to create a new family vault with a new PIN and re-add your family members. We recommend choosing a PIN that's meaningful to your family but not easily guessable by others (avoid birthdays, addresses, or simple sequences like 1234).

To prevent this situation in the future, consider sharing your PIN with at least one other trusted family member, or storing it in a secure password manager.

Emergency access is designed to be simple and fast when you need it most:

1. Go to the Kintact website and click "Emergency Access"
2. Enter the 4-digit family PIN
3. Click "Access Contacts"
4. View the list of emergency contacts (only members with "Show in emergency contacts" enabled will appear)
5. Click on phone numbers to call or email addresses to send an email directly from your device

No login, no security questions, no complicated steps. The system is designed to work even under stressful conditions when every second counts.

Remember to share your family PIN with anyone who might need to access your emergency contacts, such as close friends, neighbors, or caregivers.

Emergency access requires an internet connection to initially load the contact information from our servers. However, once the contacts are loaded, you can use them (make calls, send emails) even if you lose connectivity.

For situations where internet access might be unavailable, we recommend:

• Bookmarking the Kintact website on your device for quick access
• Having a backup copy of your most critical emergency contacts saved in your phone
• Sharing your family PIN with multiple trusted individuals so there are alternative ways to access the information

We're exploring options for offline access in future updates, but currently an initial internet connection is required to retrieve your emergency contacts.

If you're seeing fewer contacts than expected during emergency access, it's likely because some members have been marked as not visible in emergencies. When adding or managing family members, there's a toggle labeled "Show in emergency contacts" - only members with this option enabled will appear when someone accesses your vault using just the PIN.

This is a privacy feature that allows you to add extended family, friends, or professionals (like doctors) to your vault without making them visible to everyone who might need emergency access.

To make a member visible in emergency results:

1. Log in to your family vault (not emergency access)
2. Go to the dashboard
3. Find the member in your family list
4. Toggle the "Emergency visible" switch to the on position

The change takes effect immediately, and the member will now appear in emergency results.

We take the security of your family's information very seriously. Here's how we protect your data:

• PIN Protection: Your 4-digit family PIN is hashed and salted using industry-standard cryptographic methods. We never store it in plain text.
• Data Encryption: All data is encrypted both in transit (using TLS 1.3) and at rest (using AES-256 encryption).
• Access Controls: Managing your family vault requires additional verification through security questions, preventing unauthorized changes even if someone obtains your PIN.
• Infrastructure Security: We use enterprise-grade hosting with DDoS protection, intrusion detection, and regular security audits.
• Minimal Data Collection: We only collect the information necessary to provide our service - no addresses, financial data, medical records, or government IDs.

While no system can guarantee 100% security, we've implemented multiple layers of protection to keep your family's information safe while ensuring it's accessible when needed.

No, Kintact employees cannot access your family's contact information. All data is encrypted, and our staff does not have access to your family PIN or the ability to decrypt your information.

In rare cases where technical support is needed, we may access anonymized system logs to diagnose issues, but these logs do not contain your actual contact data. Our system architecture is designed to ensure that your family's information remains private and accessible only to those you authorize with your PIN.

This is part of our commitment to privacy - we built Kintact because we believe families should have control over their emergency information without worrying about corporate access or data mining.

When you delete your family vault, all associated data is marked for deletion and permanently removed from our systems within 30 days. This includes:

• All family member information (names, phone numbers, emails, relationships)
• Your family PIN
• Any preferences or settings associated with your vault

After deletion, this data cannot be recovered. We maintain encrypted backups for disaster recovery purposes, but these are also purged within the 30-day window.

If you want to preserve your family contact information, make sure to save it elsewhere before deleting your vault. Once the deletion process begins, it cannot be reversed.

Note: Simply logging out or closing your browser does not delete your vault - it remains intact until you explicitly choose to delete it.

If you're receiving an "Invalid PIN" error, try the following steps:

1. Double-check your entry: Make sure you're entering the correct 4-digit PIN. PINs are case-sensitive if you've accidentally enabled caps lock.
2. Check for similar digits: Ensure you're not confusing similar-looking numbers (like 0 and 8, or 1 and 7).
3. Try alternative PINs: If you have multiple family vaults or have changed your PIN, try any alternatives you might have used.
4. Ask a family member: If you've shared your PIN with other family members, ask them to confirm the correct PIN.

If none of these steps work, unfortunately, you'll need to create a new family vault with a new PIN, as we cannot recover forgotten PINs for security reasons.

To avoid this issue in the future, consider storing your PIN in a secure password manager or sharing it with at least one other trusted family member.

If your answer to the security question isn't being accepted, here are some things to check:

• Spelling and capitalization: Make sure you're spelling the name exactly as you entered it originally. While we do normalize for case, punctuation and spelling must match.
• First name only: The security questions typically ask for first names only, not full names or nicknames.
• Try a different question: Click the "Try Different Question" button to get a new security question. Sometimes a different relationship is easier to recall accurately.
• Check the relationship: Make sure you're thinking of the right family member based on the relationship specified in the question.

If you continue to have issues, you can try logging out and starting the login process again, or wait a few minutes and try again later.

Remember: For security reasons, we cannot bypass or reset security questions. If you're unable to answer any of the security questions, you may need to create a new family vault.

If Kintact isn't loading properly, try these troubleshooting steps:

1. Refresh the page: Sometimes a simple refresh (F5 or Ctrl+R) can resolve temporary loading issues.
2. Clear cache and cookies: Old cached data can sometimes cause issues. Clear your browser's cache and cookies for Kintact.
3. Try a different browser: If you're using Chrome, try Firefox or Safari, or vice versa.
4. Check your internet connection: Ensure you have a stable internet connection. Try loading other websites to confirm.
5. Disable browser extensions: Some browser extensions (especially ad blockers or privacy tools) can interfere with web applications. Try disabling them temporarily.
6. Try incognito/private mode: Open your browser in incognito or private mode, which disables extensions and uses a clean session.

If none of these steps work, please contact our support team at kintact@zohomailcloud.ca with details about your device, browser, and the specific issue you're experiencing.