Catalog.ID Recovery Sheet Deposit Terms

Notary: the notary named for your jurisdiction in the Schedule at the end of these terms ("Notary")
Operator: Roberto Bourgonjen, a private individual in the Netherlands, operating catalog.id under operator code fndr ("Operator"), who publishes these terms under his Custody Agreement with the Notary and is not a party to your deposit
Last updated: 2026-10-19
Status: draft, not yet in force

These Catalog.ID Recovery Sheet Deposit Terms ("Deposit Terms") govern the deposit of one Account Recovery Sheet of your Catalog.ID account with the Notary, so that your account can be recovered by you, or after your death or incapacity by the person entitled to it, when its own credentials are lost.

Your Catalog.ID account is encrypted under a credential, the supersecret, that the Operator never receives. Your Recovery Kit splits it into printed Recovery Sheets of which a fixed number together reconstruct it, and fewer reveal nothing at all. In the schema these Deposit Terms are written for, there are two sheets and both are needed: you deposit Sheet A with the Notary and place Sheet B with one or more persons of your own choosing. The Notary cannot recover your account, and neither can the Operator. The construction is described in the Catalog.ID Recovery Kit Addendum (the "Addendum").

What this deposit is, and what it is not. The Notary keeps one of your Recovery Sheets in a sealed envelope and hands it over only to you, or after your death or incapacity to the person these Deposit Terms entitle. That is all. The sheet reveals nothing on its own, so the Notary holds nothing that could unlock your account, and nobody but you or your successor ever holds the sheets together. The deposit is not account recovery and not a guarantee of access: a recovery also needs Sheet B, which only you place, and it needs your account to be in a state that allows it, which is governed by your agreement with the Operator. If every copy of Sheet B is lost, this path is closed, and the Notary can do nothing about it.

1) Acceptance

1. Your acceptance. You accept these Deposit Terms by signing the Deposit Instruction at intake and handing the Notary your Recovery Sheet for sealing.
2. The Notary's acceptance. The Notary accepts by issuing you a Receipt. Until then there is no deposit. The Notary may decline to act for you under its professional rules, and then returns the sheet to you.
3. Who may deposit. The account holder: you in person for a personal account; for an organization identity, a person authorised to bind the organization, who proves that authority to the Notary.

2) Key definitions

• Account: your Catalog.ID identity, personal or organization.
• Recovery Kit, Recovery Sheet, sheet type, copy, quorum, supersecret, encrypted key bag bundle: as in the Addendum. Several copies of one sheet type carry the same share and count as one sheet toward the quorum.
• Deposited Sheet: the copy of one sheet type you deposit with the Notary; in the two-sheet schema, Sheet A.
• Complementary Sheet: a sheet of a different type of the same kit, which must be brought together with the Deposited Sheet to reconstruct the supersecret; in the two-sheet schema, Sheet B. Its holder is a Complementary Holder.
• Bundle Media: a USB drive or other durable medium carrying an encrypted key bag bundle of your Account, which you may deposit together with the Deposited Sheet.
• Sealed Envelope: the tamper-evident envelope closed in the Notary's presence, signed across its closure by you and the Notary, carrying a seal number, your account id and the sheet type, and nothing else.
• Deposit Instruction: the form at the end of these Deposit Terms, on which you make your elections.
• Receipt: the Notary's written confirmation of your deposit.
• Release Event: your death; your incapacity, if you have elected release on incapacity in the Deposit Instruction; or, for an organization, the loss of every person authorised to represent it, its dissolution or its liquidation.
• Successor: the person entitled under section 7 or 8 to receive the Deposited Sheet after a Release Event.
• Verification Page: the page named on every Recovery Sheet, at which a sheet's QR code can be scanned to confirm that it is intact, which Account it belongs to and whether its set is still the current one. It reconstructs nothing and transmits no share.
• Custody Agreement: the Catalog.ID Recovery Sheet Custody Agreement, the agreement between the Operator and the Notary under which the Notary accepts deposits on these Deposit Terms.
• Membership Agreement and Organization Identity Agreement: your agreement with the Operator for the Account, at catalog.id/terms/ and catalog.id/organization_terms/.

3) What you deposit

1. One sheet, one type. You deposit one copy of one sheet type, printed for a custodian and naming the Notary as its addressee. You keep your originals. The Notary does not accept two different sheet types of the same kit from you, because together they are your supersecret. A personal kit that uses the Notary has exactly two sheets. In an organization kit with more sheets, Sheet B means any sheet of another type and section 10 applies.
2. Current kit. The sheet must belong to your Account's current Recovery Kit. The Notary checks this at intake where it can (section 4.2).
3. Bundle Media. You may add Bundle Media. A bundle is opaque without the supersecret and may be copied freely; depositing one with the Notary lets your Successor recover without any Catalog.ID node. Storage media age, and refreshing or replacing them is your responsibility.
4. The other sheet is yours to place. Where Sheet B is, and with whom, is your decision and your responsibility. The Notary does not ask and does not record it. The Complementary Sheets printed for this schema tell their holders to contact the Notary when you have died or can no longer act, which is all a holder needs to know. Give copies of Sheet B to more than one person you trust: this schema has no spare sheet, so if every copy of Sheet B is lost, this recovery path is closed.
5. Your own kit. Your original sheets together, and your credentials sheet, are your supersecret. Keep them as securely as you would keep it. Whoever finds them does not need the Notary.

4) Intake

1. In person. You make the deposit in person at the Notary's office. The Notary identifies you, and for an organization also your authority to act for it, under its professional rules.

2. Verification. Before the envelope is closed, the Notary scans the sheet's QR code at the Verification Page and confirms that the sheet is intact, that the fingerprint shown matches the one printed on the sheet, that the account id matches the one you state, and that the set is your Account's current one. If the page cannot be reached, the Notary records that and the deposit proceeds on your statement. Scanning one sheet reveals nothing and transmits no share.

3. Sealing. You place the sheet, and any Bundle Media, in the Sealed Envelope in the Notary's presence. You and the Notary sign across the closure. The Notary writes your account id, the sheet type and the seal number on the envelope.

4. Your elections. On the Deposit Instruction you state:

   • whether the Notary may release the Deposited Sheet when you can no longer act (section 7), or only after your death;
   • whether the Notary may take a Complementary Sheet into sealed deposit when its holder cannot keep it (section 9.3);
   • whether you have made, or intend to make, a will or codicil naming the person who is to receive the Deposited Sheet after your death (section 8.3); and
   • optionally, an address at which the Notary may reach you.

   You may change these elections at any time in the way section 6.3 describes.

5. Record and Receipt. The Notary records the deposit, with the fields listed in the Custody Agreement, and gives you a Receipt stating your account id, the sheet type, the fingerprint, the seal number, your elections and the date. The Notary keeps no image, copy, scan or transcription of your sheet.

6. Fee. You pay the intake fee in the Schedule at intake. It covers custody for the life of the deposit.

5) Custody

1. Safekeeping. The Notary keeps the Sealed Envelope in the secure storage in which it keeps its own deeds and items of value, protected against fire, water and unauthorised access.
2. What the Notary never does. The Notary does not open the Sealed Envelope, does not copy, scan, photograph or transcribe its contents, does not bring your Deposited Sheet together with a Complementary Sheet other than in separate Sealed Envelopes, does not attempt or assist a reconstruction, and does not release the envelope other than under these Deposit Terms. This binds the Notary's staff and any successor notary.
3. No periodic check, so replace on reissue. Because the envelope is sealed, the Notary does not check your sheet after intake. If you issue a new Recovery Kit, every sheet of the old kit is superseded and the Notary's envelope becomes worthless. You must then deposit a sheet of the new kit (section 6.2). Your account settings remind you.
4. Demands by others. If a court, authority or other person demands the envelope or information about your deposit, the Notary invokes its duty of confidentiality to the extent the law allows, complies only with a demand it is legally bound to comply with, and informs you, or after a Release Event your Successor, where the law permits.
5. Continuity. If the Notary leaves office, your deposit passes with the Notary's protocol to the successor notary, who is bound by these Deposit Terms, and the Schedule is updated. If the Custody Agreement between the Operator and the Notary ends, your deposit continues unchanged (section 12.4).

6) Your rights while you can act

1. Collect at any time. You may collect the Sealed Envelope at any time, in person, on identification. That ends the deposit.
2. Replace. You may replace the Deposited Sheet with a sheet of a new kit. The Notary proceeds as at intake and returns the old envelope to you or destroys it in your presence, as you choose. The fee in the Schedule applies.
3. Change your elections. You may change your elections in person, or in writing with a signature the Notary can verify. The Notary records the change and confirms it to you.
4. Authorise someone. You may authorise a named person to collect the Sealed Envelope for you, by a power of attorney in a form the Notary accepts. The Notary releases to that person as it would to you.
5. Confirm custody. You may ask the Notary, in person or in writing with a verified signature, to confirm that the envelope is in custody and that its seal is intact.
6. End the deposit. You may instruct the Notary to return or destroy the envelope. Destruction takes place unopened.

7) Release when you can no longer act

1. Only if elected. The Notary releases on incapacity only if you have elected it in the Deposit Instruction. Otherwise your deposit waits for your death or your recovery.
2. To whom. To the person who represents you under a notarial power of attorney made for the case of your incapacity, such as a Dutch living will (levenstestament), or under a measure ordered by a court, where in the Notary's judgment that person's authority extends to your Account and its contents.
3. Evidence. The Notary requires evidence of your incapacity and of the representative's authority to the standard a notary in the jurisdiction would apply, and may require a medical statement, the power of attorney, or the court order.
4. Sealed. The Notary hands the Sealed Envelope over sealed, under section 8.6. The representative acts for you and in your interest, under the law that governs their authority, and these Deposit Terms give them no further right.

8) Release after your death

1. Evidence of death. The Notary requires an extract of your death certificate or equivalent official evidence, legalised or apostilled where foreign.

2. To whom. The Notary releases the Sealed Envelope to the person entitled to administer your estate and to receive the sheet from it under the law applicable to your succession:

   • to your executor, where you appointed one and the executor's authority covers it;
   • otherwise to your heirs jointly, or to one heir or another person whom all heirs have authorised in writing with verified signatures;
   • where a court has appointed a liquidator or administrator of your estate, to that person.

   For an estate governed by Dutch law the Notary requires a certificate of inheritance (verklaring van erfrecht) or of executorship (verklaring van executele); for a cross-border estate within the European Union it accepts a European Certificate of Succession; for other estates it requires the equivalent document of the applicable law. The Notary may itself issue a certificate it is competent to issue, as a separate engagement at its usual rate.

3. A person you name. If your will or codicil names the person who is to receive the Deposited Sheet, that designation binds your executor and heirs under the applicable law. The Notary releases to the person who, on the documents presented, is entitled to receive the sheet from your estate, which is the named person directly where the applicable law allows a depositary to deliver to them. A designation made only on the Deposit Instruction, outside a will or codicil, is noted but is not by itself a testamentary disposition; the Notary can draw up a will or codicil for you as a separate engagement.

4. Several claimants. Where persons claiming to be your Successor disagree, or the Notary has reasonable doubt, the Notary suspends release until they agree in writing or a court has decided.

5. Minors and persons under protection. Where an heir is a minor or under a protective measure, the Notary releases to their legal representative.

6. Handover. Release takes place in person at the Notary's office. The Successor checks the seals, signs a handover record naming the seal numbers, their state and the date, pays the release fee in the Schedule, and receives the Sealed Envelope unopened together with a copy of the Receipt. The Notary informs the Successor in writing that whoever reconstructs the supersecret controls the Account, that the Account should receive a new Recovery Kit afterwards and may be closed only where the Account Holder's legacy policy allows it, and that what a Successor may do with the Account is governed by the Membership Agreement or the Organization Identity Agreement, not by the Notary.

7. Good faith. A release made in good faith to a person who, on the documents presented and the Notary's professional standard, appeared entitled discharges the Notary.

9) The Complementary Sheet

1. The Notary holds no map. The Notary does not know, and does not record in advance, who holds Sheet B. The Complementary Sheets printed for this schema tell their holder to contact the Notary when you have died or can no longer act. A holder who contacts the Notary while you can act is referred to you.
2. Before a Successor is established. When a Complementary Holder comes forward after a Release Event and no Successor has yet been established, the Notary records the holder's name and contact details, asks the holder to keep the sheet safe, and tells the holder that the Notary will contact them when a Successor has been established.
3. Sealed deposit of a Complementary Sheet. If you have so elected, and the holder cannot or does not wish to keep the sheet, the Notary takes the Complementary Sheet into deposit in a Sealed Envelope closed and signed in the holder's and the Notary's presence, stores it apart from your Deposited Sheet, and never opens it. No fee is charged to the holder.
4. After a Successor is established. The Notary tells the Complementary Holder who the Successor is and asks the holder to hand the Complementary Sheet to the Successor; the Notary may host that handover at its office. A Complementary Sheet held in sealed deposit is released to the Successor together with the Deposited Sheet under section 8.6, so that the Successor is the first person since you to hold both.
5. If no Complementary Sheet surfaces. Then the Deposited Sheet is of no use, the Notary cannot help, and the deposit ends under section 12.3. The Notary bears no responsibility for the loss or non-appearance of a Complementary Sheet.
6. The holder's position. A Complementary Holder is not a party to these Deposit Terms and owes the Notary nothing. The Notary gives the holder no information about your Account beyond what the holder's own sheet shows, and does not disclose the holder's details to anyone but the Successor.

10) Organizations

1. Who acts. For an organization identity the depositor is the organization, acting through a representative authorised to bind it. The Notary releases to a person who proves, by a current trade register extract or equivalent, that they are authorised to represent the organization, and may require a resolution of the organization's governing body where its rules require one for a matter of this kind.
2. Release Events. The death or departure of an individual representative is not a Release Event: the organization collects or replaces through its remaining representatives under section 6. A Release Event is the loss of every authorised representative, dissolution or liquidation, in which case the Notary releases to the liquidator or to the person the applicable law entrusts with the organization's affairs.
3. Delegates. A sheet of a delegate identity's kit is deposited by the delegate in person. Because a delegate identity exists only to act for an organization, its Successor after the delegate's death or incapacity is that organization, acting under section 10.1, unless the organization and the delegate agreed otherwise in writing and informed the Notary at intake.

11) Fees

1. Intake fee. Payable by you at intake, one-off, covering custody for the life of the deposit, including custody by a successor notary.
2. Release fee. Payable at release by the person collecting, at the rate published in the Schedule at that time.
3. Other. Replacement and Bundle Media as in the Schedule. Certificates, wills, codicils and other notarial work are separate engagements at the Notary's usual rates.
4. Nothing to the Operator. The Operator charges nothing for the deposit and receives nothing from the Notary.

12) End of the deposit

1. By you. When you collect, replace, or instruct return or destruction (section 6).
2. By release. When the Notary releases the Sealed Envelope to your Successor (sections 7 and 8).
3. Unclaimed. If, after the Notary has learned of your death, no Successor has collected within the retention period in the Schedule, the Notary destroys the Sealed Envelope unopened and records the destruction. A Complementary Sheet in sealed deposit is destroyed with it.
4. The Notary or the Operator. If the Notary leaves office, section 5.5 applies. If the Custody Agreement ends, or the Operator ceases to operate catalog.id, your deposit continues under these Deposit Terms until it ends under this section. The Operator, if it still operates, names a successor notary in the Schedule and offers you reprinted sheets with that notary's details should you wish to move your deposit, which you do by collecting and depositing anew.

13) Your personal data

1. The Notary as controller. The Notary is the controller for the data in its deposit and handover records: your identity as established at intake, your account id, the sheet type and fingerprint, the seal number, your elections, your optional contact address, and later the details of Complementary Holders who come forward and of your Successor. The Notary also holds, inside the Sealed Envelope, the verified email address and telephone number printed on your sheet.
2. Purpose and basis. The Notary processes these data to perform the deposit and to comply with its statutory duties as a notary.
3. Retention. For the life of the deposit and for the period the Notary's professional rules require afterwards.
4. No disclosure to the Operator. The Notary tells the Operator nothing about your deposit. The Operator does not know that you have made one; your selection of the Notary is stored only in your encrypted key bag, which the Operator cannot read.
5. Your rights. You may exercise your rights under data protection law toward the Notary at the address in the Schedule. The Operator's processing of your Account is described in the Catalog Privacy Policy.

14) Liability

1. The Notary. The Notary is liable under the law applicable to its profession for a breach of these Deposit Terms, including opening or copying the Sealed Envelope, releasing it to a person not entitled, or losing it. The Notary's professional liability insurance applies.
2. What the Notary is not liable for. The cryptography and the printing of your Recovery Kit; the availability or output of the Verification Page; the loss, destruction or non-appearance of a Complementary Sheet; the state of your Account and what a Successor may do with it; the ageing of Bundle Media; and a release made in good faith under section 8.7.
3. The Operator. The Operator is not a party to your deposit and is not liable for the custody, release or retention of the Sealed Envelope. The Operator's liability for your Account is governed by the Membership Agreement or the Organization Identity Agreement.

15) General

1. Changes. The Operator and the Notary may change these Deposit Terms for new deposits. Your deposit stays under the Deposit Terms you accepted, unless you accept the current version when you replace your sheet or change your elections, or mandatory law requires otherwise. Changes to fees apply as section 11 describes.
2. Relation to your agreement with the Operator. These Deposit Terms govern only the deposit. Your Account, including what happens to it on your death and what a Successor may do with it, is governed by the Membership Agreement or the Organization Identity Agreement.
3. Language. These Deposit Terms are published in English and in Dutch. The version in the language of your Receipt prevails for your deposit.
4. Severability. If a provision is held invalid, the remaining provisions continue in full force.
5. Governing law and venue. Your deposit is governed by the law of the Notary's jurisdiction named in the Schedule. Disputes are brought before the competent court of the place where the Notary has its office, unless mandatory law requires a different venue. Complaints about the Notary may also be brought under the professional complaints procedure applicable to notaries in that jurisdiction.

16) Contact

The Notary, for everything concerning your deposit: see the Schedule.

The Operator, for questions about Catalog.ID, the Recovery Kit and the Verification Page, never about an individual deposit:
Roberto Bourgonjen, operator of catalog.id
Address: Lange Leidsedwarsstraat 96, 1017 NM Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Website: catalog.id
Email: [email protected]

Schedule: notaries, fees and evidence by jurisdiction

The Netherlands

Deposit Instruction

(completed and signed at intake, one per deposit)

To: the Notary named in the Schedule

I deposit with you one Account Recovery Sheet of my Catalog.ID account under the Catalog.ID Recovery Sheet Deposit Terms, which I have read and accept.

Catalog.ID account id: __________

Account type: personal / organization (name and trade register number: __________)

Sheet type and position, as printed: __________

Fingerprint, as printed on the verification line: __________

Bundle Media deposited: no / yes (description: __________)

Release when I can no longer act (section 7): permitted / not permitted

Sealed deposit of Sheet B by its holder when the holder cannot keep it (section 9.3): permitted / not permitted

Person to receive the sheet after my death (section 8.3): no designation / designated in my will or codicil dated __________ / I intend to make one

Address at which the Notary may reach me (optional): __________

Name: __________

Signature: __________ Date: __________

For the Notary: Deposit number _ Seal number _ Currency check: confirmed / not performed Intake fee received: __