Traceability prevents file leaks.
If it leaks, you’ll know who.
Provlyn stamps each copy with the recipient’s email address and the exact moment they opened the file. Every copy is unique to one person, so any leak leads straight back to its source — and a recipient who knows their copy can be traced is far more cautious about where the file goes.
Most leaks are casual.
Confidential material rarely leaves through a hack. It leaves through a forward — to one more person, onto a personal device, into the wrong inbox. When the file carries nothing identifying, there is nothing to make the sender think twice.
A visible, per-recipient mark changes that. Whoever holds the file knows any copy of it traces back to them — and that accountability, not the technology itself, is what deters the leak.
How the mark works
A faint, repeating diagonal mark, generated for each recipient the moment they open a file.
It carries their identity
The mark shows the recipient’s email address and the exact date and time they accessed the file, in UTC.
It is unique to each person
No two recipients receive the same copy, so a single leaked file resolves to a single individual.
It stays with the file
The mark is part of the file itself, so it remains if the copy is saved, forwarded, printed or screenshotted.
PDFs and images
Marks apply to PDFs and image files. View-only shares are served as marked page images, so the original never leaves our servers.
This isn’t theoretical.
Major film studios add a unique watermark to every awards screener, identifying the member it is sent to. When several of those films appeared on file-sharing sites, the watermarks identified exactly whose copies had leaked.
The case went to court: the member responsible was ordered to pay six figures in damages, and the man who uploaded the films was convicted of criminal copyright infringement. A per-recipient watermark turns an anonymous leak into an attributable one — and that attribution has held up in court.
When you choose to watermark, the mark includes a recipient’s email address, so it is visible in the file to anyone who views it and remains if the file is forwarded. You are responsible for having a lawful basis and for informing recipients where required — see our Terms and Privacy Policy.
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