PIN lock and biometric unlock
Prevent casual access to your PesaTrack expense history with an optional 4- or 6-digit PIN, plus fingerprint or face unlock.
What the PIN protects against
The PIN lock protects against casual access — someone else picking up your unlocked phone and opening PesaTrack out of curiosity. It is not a forensic-level control and does not encrypt the underlying database. See the Security page for the full threat model.
If your phone itself is not locked with a screen lock, add one first. PesaTrack’s PIN complements the device screen lock; it does not replace it.
Enabling the PIN
- Settings → Security → PIN lock → Enable.
- Pick a 4-digit or 6-digit PIN. 6 digits is recommended.
- Confirm by entering the same PIN again.
The PIN is stored as a salted SHA-256 hash in DataStore. The raw PIN is never persisted.
Enabling biometrics
Once a PIN is set, you can enable Fingerprint / Face unlock in the same
Security screen. This uses Android’s BiometricPrompt API. Your biometric
templates never touch PesaTrack — Android brokers the check.
Biometrics are a convenience layer over the PIN. The PIN remains the authoritative fallback.
When PesaTrack asks for the PIN
- Every cold start (app is opened after being fully closed).
- After a configurable timeout when returning to the foreground — Settings → Security → Auto-lock after. Options: immediately, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, never.
Forgetting the PIN
There is no recovery flow. If you forget the PIN and biometrics are not enrolled, you have to uninstall the app and lose the local database (or restore from a backup you made earlier).
This is intentional: a recovery flow that we controlled would defeat the “nothing leaves the device” guarantee. See the Privacy policy for the reasoning.
Disabling
Settings → Security → PIN lock → Disable. Enter the current PIN once to confirm. Biometrics are disabled automatically when the PIN is disabled.