Frequently Asked Questions (with answers)

Click any of the questions to display the corresponding answer.

If you have a question that is not answered here, please email us at [email protected] or see our contact page for other ways to contact us.

• Is this HIPAA compliant?
  Yes, HIPAA compliance is one of the principal goals of SMP. Please refer to our HIPAA page for a complete discussion of the issues involved.
• Will my confidential data ever be sent out in email?
  SMP operates on the assumption that all email is not private and should never be used for confidential data. SMP will never include the contents of a message or a room's internal name in email. SMP always refers to a room by it's 'external' name, you are responsible for ensuring that it does not contain confidential data.
• Does Secure Meeting Place integrate with EMRs?
  No, SMP does not directly integrate with any electronic medical record (EMR) systems. However in the near future we will be offering the ability to download SMP conversations in PDF format which you could then integrate into your EMR.
• What does an SMP administrator see when viewing customer data?
  The administrator can see the same view as a user, except that confidential data is presented as bullets since the administrator does not have your key to decrypt them. Here is an example:
• But can't an SMP administrator just look in the database directly and see my data?
  Well, she can look, but all she will see is the encrypted data. Remember that your password is needed to access the key which encrypts the confidential data. The example below shows how the confidential subject and body of a typical message appear in the database; the long strings of random-looking numbers and letters are the encrypted subject and body of the message. Without the key, it is cryptographically impossible to reveal the original text.
• Who owns my data? Can I download my data?
  You always own all your data entered into SMP (as described in the Terms of Service page). We will be happy to provide you copy of all your data upon request, please contact us.
• When I leave the service, what happens to my data (messages and files)?
  Any messages in a room with other members will remain and continue to be viewable by them (unless releases are required and you revoke all releases). If you require that your messages and files be removed, you must explictly delete them before leaving the service. Any room (including its messages) where you were the only member may be deleted, as nobody would be able to access the encrypted data once you left the service.
• Do I have to use releases?
  The host of each room decides if that room requires releases. If a room requires releases, then all members of that room must confirm releases for all other members.
• How do I upload releases?
  You do not upload releases to Secure Meeting Place, you are responsible for keeping records of your releases. SMP manages who can view your messages based on which releases you confirm to SMP that you have.
• Where are releases stored?
  Secure Meeting Place does not verify or store releases. SMP tracks which members you have confirmed you have a release for, on a room-by-room basis.
• How does the pricing work?
  Anyone can sign up for our free Standard plan. Professional and Corporate plans are billed monthly to your credit card, with a discount for annual prepayment. See our Pricing page for complete details.
• How are backups handled?
  The Secure Meeting Place system automatically makes backups of the customer database on an hourly (or more frequent) basis and stores them on Amazon's S3 service. Attached documents are encrypted before they too are stored on S3. Please refer to the linked page for more informaton on Amazon's guarantees on data durability.
• Are backups encrypted?
  Yes, all confidentical data is stored in encrypted format in backups. As confidential data is stored in encrypted format in the database, the backup process simply makes an exact copy of the database, encypted data and all.
• If I delete a room or message, how long would it live on the servers?
  When you delete a room (as opposed to just unsubscribing from a room), all messages and attached documents are immediately deleted from the database. Similarly, deleting a message immediately deletes it from the database. However, copies of rooms and/or messages will remain in any backups that were made before the deletion.
• If someone is invited to a room after there has already been discussion, can they see the discussion that was going on before they subscribed to the room?
  The visibility of pre-existing messages is chosen by the host who invites a new member to a room. They can allow the new member to see all previous messages, only messages posted after the member was invited or only messages posted after the new member actually accepts the invitation.
• What do I do if a client revokes permission for me to speak with someone?
  You can update SMP to revoke a release for another member at any point. When you revoke a release, all messages in the room become unviewable by the member whose release you revoked. Currently, there is no way to revoke a release from a given point in time forward.
• If someone takes a screen shot of a Secure Meeting Place conversation, couldn't they just share it?
  Yes, this is correct. There is no realistic way to prevent someone from taking a screenshot on their computer of something they already have access to. In this case, you've done all that you can do to maintain confidentiality and the burden is on the person making the screenshot to keep it confidential.
• Does Secure Meeting Place integrate with smart phones?
  The SMP website is designed to work well on all sizes of screens, from smart phone to full-sized desktop. We do not currently have an 'app' for SMP on mobile devices.
• How do you store passwords? Are passwords ever logged?
  Passwords are never stored in the clear. Passwords are stored in the database hashed with Bcrypt, an industry standard method designed to make password guessing impossible for all practical purposes. Secure Meeting Place also never stores passwords in log files.

How it Works

• Rooms

  Secure Meeting Place is organized around ‟rooms”. You can also think of rooms as ‟topics” — a room might be used for discussions about a client, patient, story, movie, topic, case, or anything else. Access to rooms is by invitation only — you must be invited by a host to participate (read or post messages).

  A room contains messages, grouped in ‟threads”, a series of related messages. Messages can also contain links to external sites or attached documents.

  Rooms have both an internal name and an external name. The external name will be used for external communications (e.g. new message notification emails) and should always be considered non-confidential.

  You can organize your rooms into groups for your convenience, for example you might have ‟Active” and ‟Inactive” groups. Each user groups rooms as she pleases; the group name and organization are private to you.

• Confidentiality

  All user data entered on Secure Meeting Place is considered confidential, with a few carefully noted exceptions. Please refer to our Security page for an explanation of how we ensure the confidentiality of your data.

  In particular, room internal names, message subjects and contents, attached documents and group names are all stored in encrypted format. By virtue of being encrypted with a key derived from your password, the personnel of Secure Meeting Place are unable to view any confidential data. See our Password Info page for more info on how passwords are used.

  The only user data which is not treated as confidential (and thus stored in unencrypted format) are the rooms' external names. The external name is used to refer to rooms in notifications which can be sent via email. Since email should be treated as non-confidential, the system always uses the non-confidential external name in notifications. For example, a room's internal name might be a client's full name while the external name might be a first name only or a case number or some other pseudonym.

  Note that information about messages, rooms and user accounts is not encrypted. For messages, this means who posted it, when it was posted, and who has read it is not encrypted. Similarly, for rooms, information such as when it was created, who is a member, who has a release for whom, etc. is not encrypted. User account information (your contact info, which rooms you are a member of, etc) is similarly not encrypted.

• Releases

  Access to messages and documents in a room can optionally be controlled by requiring releases. Releases allow you to post to everyone in the room, yet ensure that only people who you have explicitly allowed access are permitted to read your messages.

  Requiring releases in a room is optional; the host of a room decides if releases should be required or not. If releases are not required, then all members of the room can always see all messages.

  Because rooms can have multiple particpants, and not everyone will have a release for everyone else, this allows you to invite everyone to the room and each member of the room manages who should and should not see their messages by confirming (or not confirming) that they have a release for each other member.

  The canonical use for this is controlling access to confidential patient data (such as medical records). For example, consider a room being used to discuss patient care for a patient Paul and that three providers (Alice, Bob and Cary) are members of the room. Alice needs a release from the patient for each other provider who she will communicate with. Alice may have a release for Bob but not yet have one for Cary. Alice records the release for Bob and when she posts a message to the room, Bob can read it, but Cary sees only that a message was posted, the contents are hidden from for him.

  Note that releases are unidirectional, they are not reciprocal. Alice and Bob each need to confirm a release for each other if they want the other person to be able to read their messages. If Alice has recorded a release for Bob and Bob has not recorded one for Alice, then Bob will be able to read Alice's messages but Alice will be unable to read Bob's messages.

  Note that Secure Meeting Place does not validate or store releases, it only tracks which members have confirmed that they have releases for which other members. Once you confirm a release for a given member in a specific room, all your messages (past and future) in that room become viewable by that person. You can also revoke a release for a room member at any time; all of your messages then become unreadable by that member when you do this.