Device key shares are stored exclusively on your device, therefore they are at constant risk of loss or corruption. Personal Backup allows you to recover your key shares, required to sign transactions, using a recovery phrase set up on the Utila mobile app.
If any user loses access to their device’s key shares, that device’s signing privileges are revoked. Device key shares can be recovered using your Personal Backup. This is a user-specific backup that allows you to recover any user’s device key shares in the event they lose access to it.
The vault owner, admins, and signers must create a personal backup with the Utila mobile app as part of their user setup.
As part of the setup, a 13-word mnemonic passphrase is auto-generated on the Utila app and is used by the system to create an encrypted backup of all key shares stored on a device ("Personal Backup"), which is then stored securely on Utila's cloud servers. Thus, when you create a personal backup, all the vault keys, for all your vaults assigned to the user you are signed in with, are backed up.
This passphrase is used for device key share recovery, in the event of lost access to device key shares for whatever reason (loss, theft, damage, Utila app deletion, device migration). Therefore, this passphrase should be written on a piece of paper, stored securely and managed collectively at the organizational level.
Note: If you lose your passphrase, you can reset it as long as you still have access to the paired vault via the mobile app.
For the process, see the Guide to personal backup of device keys.