Core Concepts

Literal is a zero-knowledge document verification platform for KYC and other high-trust workflows.

Documents are encrypted before upload. Literal’s application and database layers store encrypted content, wrapped keys, and opaque tokens, but they do not receive document plaintext.

Operations that require temporary access to decrypted content — such as text extraction, verification, and entity-scoped index generation — run inside a hardware-isolated secure enclave. The general application layer does not receive plaintext from those operations.

Literal also uses hybrid cryptography for sensitive key transport and signing paths, combining established elliptic-curve primitives with post-quantum algorithms. The detailed key model is covered in Key Hierarchy.

What Makes Literal Different

Traditional KYC systems often require organizations to collect, store, and repeatedly reprocess sensitive documents. Literal separates verification from unrestricted document custody.

Document holders keep control of access. Organizations can verify what they need through consent-based grants. The application server coordinates the workflow, but encrypted documents, blind tokens, and enclave processing keep plaintext out of the general server layer.

Document plaintext is available only to the document holder, authorized recipients, or the attested enclave during authorized processing.

Explore The Concepts

• Zero-Knowledge Model — Understand what Literal can and cannot see.
• Document Lifecycle — Follow a document from upload through processing, sharing, and deletion.
• Key Hierarchy — Learn which keys exist, where they are generated, and what they protect.
• Encrypted Search — See how blind indexes support search without exposing search terms.
• Entities & Memberships — Understand organization membership without exposing unnecessary relationship data.
• Grants & Sharing — Learn how consent-based, time-limited, revocable access works.
• Blind Routing — See how sensitive relationships are tokenized to reduce relationship mapping.

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