Secure file sharing for security firms and executive protection teams

Your team will spend a week on the advance. The routes get driven twice, the venue gets walked with the head of house security, and the residence is surveyed room by room. Then the whole thing goes out as a PDF attached to an email.

That email is now the most useful document anyone could steal about your principal.

It says where they will be and when. It shows which doors the cameras cover and which they don't. If the threat assessment is attached, it names the people your client is worried about. And it doesn't go away. It sits in your sent folder, the client's inbox, the chief of staff's phone and the driver's personal Gmail, and it stays readable long after the detail has wrapped.

If you run a security advisory, a physical-security company or an executive-protection team, the way you move files is part of your client's attack surface. You already know that. The problem is that most alternatives mean asking a busy principal or a venue manager to learn a new system, and they won't. This post is about tightening things up without asking anyone to create an account.

The paperwork outlives the job

Protective work produces documents with a short useful life and a long risky one. An itinerary matters for the few days of the trip. After that, it's a record of how your principal travels, which hotels they prefer and how early they leave for the airport. A site survey stays accurate until the camera layout changes, which in most homes is never. Threat assessments and incident reports carry names and details that nobody wants circulating, least of all the client.

Email treats all of these the way it treats a lunch invite. You send it, and it's kept forever. Cloud drives aren't much better. A Google Drive share set to "anyone with the link" has no expiry of its own, which we went through in Google Drive will expire a named share. "Anyone with the link" will not.

What you actually want is a link that stops working when you decide it should.

Sending an itinerary or site survey that expires

On the free plan, every TinyX file link can carry two controls: a password and an expiry.

The password is simple, and most of its value comes from how you send it. Put the link in an email and the password in a Signal message, or read it out on a call. Anyone who intercepts or forwards the email ends up with a link that opens nothing.

Expiry can be a date, a download or click limit, or both. That lets you match the link to the job. The itinerary for a four-day trip can stop working on day five. The incident report for the client's counsel can be set to a single download, so once their lawyer has it, the link is finished. A floor plan for a venue manager might get a date and a two-download cap, and it ends at whichever comes first.

When a link expires, it's gone. There's no redirect to a TinyX page and no archived copy left open for later. The file is purged.

Your recipients don't need an account for any of this. The principal's chief of staff, the venue's operations manager or a subcontracted driver clicks the link, types the password and downloads the file. That matters more than it sounds. The moment a secure process asks people to sign up for something, they find a way around it, and the way around it is usually email.

Getting files back from venues and clients

Advance work runs in both directions. You need floor plans from the venue, a staff list from the family office and photos from the site lead after an incident. Usually that means a long email chain and at least one file that turns up as a phone photo of a printout.

On Pro and Max, you can send the other side an upload drop instead. It's a short link they upload files to directly, with no account and nothing to install. When something arrives, TinyX can send an alert to Slack, Discord or any webhook you choose, so your ops channel knows the venue plans are in without anyone refreshing an inbox. When the advance window closes, you close the drop.

Upload drops aren't included on the free plan.

When a password isn't enough

Passwords and expiry decide who can open a link and for how long. They don't change who could read the file while it's stored. For a threat assessment or a residence survey, some clients will want a better answer than "the vendor promises not to look".

Pro and Max add end-to-end encryption. Files are encrypted with AES-256-GCM in your browser before they leave your machine, and the key never reaches TinyX servers. What we store is ciphertext we can't decrypt. If anyone asks us for the file, the most we could hand over is encrypted bytes and the metadata needed to run the link, such as its size and expiry settings.

If you want to see how the upload path works step by step, How TinyX encrypts your files walks through it. To be clear about the tiers: free links get passwords and expiry, and end-to-end encryption starts on Pro.

Knowing the brief arrived

TinyX records clicks on your links by country and device in real time. Free includes basic analytics, and Pro and Max include full analytics. In practice, that answers a question you'd otherwise have to ask by message, which is whether the client has actually opened the brief yet. Pricing shows exactly what each tier includes.

Which plan fits a security firm

A small advisory firm can usually start on Free. You get 150MB per file and 10GB of storage, which comfortably covers itineraries, PDF surveys and reports, along with passwords, expiry and basic analytics.

Pro is $9 a month. Files can be up to 1GB, storage goes up to 100GB, and you get upload drops, end-to-end encryption and full analytics. If you collect material from venues or handle threat assessments, this is the plan to look at.

Max is $29 a month, with 5GB per file and 300GB of storage. It's for teams moving site-survey video and large photo sets.

Caps do change, so confirm them on pricing before you commit. The full product list is on features.

If your work overlaps with counsel on incidents, disputes or insurance claims, the same approach applies to privileged material. TinyX for lawyers covers it from their side.

FAQ

Do clients, venue staff or subcontractors need a TinyX account? No. They need the link, plus the password if you set one. The same goes for anyone uploading to a drop on Pro or Max.

Can I limit a link to a single download? Yes. Expiry can be a download or click limit, a date, or both. A limit of one suits incident reports and anything else that should be opened once.

Is the free plan end-to-end encrypted? No. Free covers password protection, expiry and basic analytics. End-to-end encryption and upload drops start on Pro.

What happens to the file when a link expires? The link stops working and doesn't redirect anywhere. The file is purged rather than archived.

Where to start

If your firm still sends itineraries as attachments, the easiest place to start is the next one. Create a free link on tinyx.co, set a password and an expiry that matches the trip, and send the password through a different channel. When you need upload drops or end-to-end encryption, Pro and Max are on pricing.