The Conversation That Matters Most

You’ve been at a Pride event for hours. The music, the warmth of the crowd, the electric feeling of belonging — and then, unexpectedly, someone catches your eye. You talk for a while. There’s a real connection. The night starts moving in a direction you both want.

And then comes that pause. That slightly awkward, impossibly important moment where one of you has to bring up sexual health.

How do you have that conversation honestly? And how does the other person know what you’re sharing is actually real?

Why knowing your partner’s status matters

Sexual health conversations are among the most intimate we can have — and statistically, one of the most avoided. About one in eight people feel uncomfortable discussing STIs with a sexual partner. One in seven feel uncomfortable bringing it up with their own doctor.

The silence is understandable. It’s also costly.

Over 2.4 million STI cases were reported in the US in 2023. Nearly half occurred in adults between 15 and 24 — the demographic most likely to be navigating new partners, new situations, and those exact charged pauses described above. The CDC estimates one in five Americans is currently living with an STI, many without knowing it.

Knowing your partner’s status before becoming intimate isn’t about distrust. It’s about entering that moment with honesty and mutual respect — making an informed choice together. But for that to mean anything, you need a way to share health data that’s verified and impossible to fake. Until now, the best most people could do was take someone’s word for it, or share a screenshot that could have been altered by anyone with five minutes and a photo editor.

What Protecht is, and what it does

Protecht™ is a HIPAA-compliant iOS app that gives you secure, verified access to your own sexual health records — and lets you share them privately, on your terms.

It doesn’t ask you to self-report anything. Instead, it connects directly to your healthcare providers using the same FHIR data standard that hospitals and health systems use to exchange records. Through integrations with Epic and other major provider networks, Protecht can reach records for over 250 million patients across the US. You authenticate, you authorize the connection, and your verified test results download directly to your device.

The app currently tracks nine STI conditions — chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, HIV, hepatitis B, HPV, trichomoniasis, and more — along with vaccination records for Meningitis, Mpox, Hepatitis A, and Covid-19.

Here’s the part that matters most: once your data is downloaded from your provider, it cannot be edited. Not by you. Not by Protecht. Not by anyone. The results are read-only, exactly as your provider recorded them. There’s no way to alter a negative result to hide a positive one. The data is what the data is.

Security that matches what’s at stake

Your sexual health data is among the most personal information that exists. Protecht was built with that in mind — not as a compliance checkbox, but as the founding principle.

All health information is encrypted on your device using AES-256-GCM encryption before it’s ever stored. The key that unlocks that encryption lives in Apple’s Secure Enclave — a dedicated hardware chip that can’t be accessed by the operating system, by apps, or by anyone who might somehow get hold of your phone. Only your device can decrypt your data.

Protecht’s backend never sees your health records. The servers handle only the coordination needed to enable sharing — not the data itself. This means there’s nothing on Protecht’s side to breach. Your records stay where they belong: with you.

Your data is yours to share as you want

Protecht gives you precise control over every share. You can send your complete health summary, or select only specific conditions relevant to a particular conversation. You can share under your legal name, a nickname, or no name at all — the verified data speaks for itself, and your identity is always yours to decide.

When you do share, the person receiving it doesn’t need the app. Protecht generates a secure access link that works on any device.

And then — sixty seconds later — it’s gone.

The access window is designed to expire. Not because we don’t trust people, but because your health data shouldn’t live indefinitely in someone’s inbox or screenshot folder after a moment has passed. The data appears, it serves its purpose, and then it disappears. It’s the digital equivalent of showing someone your test result in person and then putting it away.

Back to that moment

Two people at a Pride event. A real connection. That pause.

With Protecht, the pause becomes a conversation. One person opens the app, selects what they want to share, and hands their phone over. The other sees verified, provider-authenticated results — not a screenshot, not a self-report, not a reassurance that requires blind faith. Real data, from a real provider, that neither party could have changed.

Sixty seconds later, it’s gone.

What remains is something rarer than a clean result: a foundation of honesty. A connection that started with trust.

That’s what Protecht is for.