Chartered accountants
Applies to: France
Encrypted file exchange for accounting and tax practices
Send documents to clients and request documents from them – encrypted, no client account needed, with proof of when they were downloaded.
- Developed & operated in Germany
- End-to-end encrypted
- Professional secrecy in our contract
- Signed proofs of delivery
What your professional rules require
Chartered accountants, trainees, certain salaried professionals and partially authorised practitioners are bound by professional secrecy, under the conditions and penalties of Art. 226-13 of the Criminal Code.
In addition to professional secrecy, a duty of discretion applies to all information you obtain in the course of your work. You ensure that staff to whom you assign work also comply with it.
Recommendation of the French data protection authority: encrypt sensitive files before sending them, and send the password through a different channel from the file.
How TEPHIA SECURE meets them
Contractual confidentiality
In clause 5b, our data processing agreement commits us to secrecy, limits access to what the service requires and binds everyone involved in writing. You conclude it electronically and receive a copy as a PDF.
State of the art
AES-256-GCM encryption in the sender’s browser, with the key derived from the password using Argon2id. The server holds no key and cannot read the contents.
No account needed for recipients
Recipients do not need an account. Clients and third parties can send you documents through an upload box, with the same protection and the same proof of delivery.
Verifiable proof of delivery
Each entry is cryptographically chained to the previous one. The proof of delivery is a signed PDF/A with a timestamp from an independent time-stamping authority.
How your proofs are secured
| In every planSignature with our certificate | Add-on · coming soonQualified electronic seal | |
|---|---|---|
| Any change to the PDF invalidates the signature | included | included |
| Timestamp from an independent authority | included | included |
| Hash chain with daily chain seal | included | included |
| Checksum (SHA-256) of every file, confirmed by the recipient | included | included |
| Verifiable online, without an account | included | included |
| Display in Adobe Reader | “Validity unknown”1 | Valid |
| Legal presumption of authenticity (Art. 35(2) eIDAS) | not included | included |
| Useful for | Your records, clients | Courts, authorities, the other party |
1 Not an error: our certificate is not on the EU trust list that Reader recognises. You can check integrity online or using the certificate fingerprint.
- Signature: any change is detected
- Timestamp from an independent authority
- Hash chain with daily chain seal
- Checksum of every file, confirmed by the recipient
- Verifiable online, without an account
- Adobe Reader shows “Valid” instead of “Validity unknown”
- Legal presumption of authenticity (Art. 35(2) eIDAS)
- Useful for courts, authorities, the other party
There is no certification of services like this by a professional body, and carefully selecting a service provider remains your responsibility under your professional rules.
The information on the legal position on this page is general information, without any warranty as to completeness or currency, and does not constitute legal advice. Only our contracts are binding.