Malicious family organizer deletes another family organizer account.

cadizjavier
cadizjavier
Community Member
in Families

Hi, first i want to say quickly that i use 1Password a lot since several years ago and this is without doubt a best in class product.
Every year before i renew my 1Password individual subscription i'm tempted to try 1Password for Families but there is an issue that holds me back every single time.
A malicious (or by accident) family organizer can delete another family account without their consent and suddenly you lose all your data.

There is an old thread on the forums about this since 2017 and a lot of points were made:

I also last year wrote personally last year to the support asking about this exactly issue.
The support member responded very nicely and the main point was made:
" We feel that accidentally deleting an account should be very rare - as you'd have to go through the account settings page and with multiple warnings that you will be affecting other members data."

As a workaround solution this was proposed:
"In those cases, the other person would have to save their data by putting one of their devices with the 1Password app on it into Airplane mode then copying their data into a new standalone vault."

This is an awkward solution since you don't know until you try to access your account that it was revoked. It's like the chicken-egg problem.

At the end of the thread he mentioned:
"I will definitely advocate for this feature within our team."

I understand that Families derived from Teams and there this isn't an issue, but this is very problematic in a Family environment.

Is this something that will be addressed somehow ?
I'm not asking about timelines, i'm a developer myself and understand the dynamics of the businesses, i just want an honest answer about what to expect in the future.

Thanks for the time and keep with the good work.

1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
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Comments

  • Ben
    Ben

    Hi @cadizjavier

    I'm not aware of anything that we have in place that would be able to prevent a Family Organzier from deleting the membership (which would result in all family members losing access to their data). As a rule we don't "pre-announce" features, so I'm sorry I can't be any more specific than that. I'd have to encourage you to plan your 1Password usage around what is available now. If you are in a position where your family members cannot trust your family organizer(s), it may be best to stick with individual memberships instead. Or, perhaps, keep personal data in an individual membeship and only use a family membeship for items that are shared with other family members. While no one ever has access to anyone else's Personal vault, Family Organizers do wield a significant amount of power over shared vaults and the membership as a whole. I personally wouldn't store data in a membership where I didn't have a high level of confidence in the organizers.

    I understand that isn't ideal for every family dynamic, and perhaps in the future there will be a way in which family members can spin off into their own accounts, e.g. in the event a family organizer deletes the membeship contrary to their wishes. I can certainly see an argument for that. I can also see an argument where perhaps the family members are minors and the organizer is their legal guardian, and as such has every right to delete their data if they so desire. What I can say is I'm fairly sure we don't want to get in the middle of either type of situation. :)

    Ben

  • cadizjavier
    cadizjavier
    Community Member

    Hi Ben,
    Thanks for taking the time to response.

    I'm completely fine with a Family Organizer deleting Members account. (Not ideal but it has some cases, like you mentioned)
    The real issue is Family Organizers deleting other Family Organizers accounts.

    A few notes: (Always referring to the Family Organizer <-> Family Organizer scenario ... not Members)

    "If you are in a position where your family members cannot trust your family organizer(s)": This could happen in every single Family plan, accidents like this happen and suddenly you lose your account without any notice. Think about it, you lose all your passwords, all your secure data, just like that, without a way to go back. Nothing can save you from this kind of accident, not even the Emergency Kit.
    This is not a trust problem or a family dynamic problem, this is very serious problem that the system is allowing to happen.

    "keep personal data in an individual membership and only use a family membership for items that are shared with other family members": This is very suboptimal since i would need to have 2 or more accounts at home, 1 for every single member and then 1 for the family sharing stuffs. Not ideal.

    " I can also see an argument where perhaps the family members are minors and the organizer is their legal guardian": True, but then the minor would be a simple Member, not another Family Organizer were the real issue is.

    I can't think of a scenario where a Family Organizer deleting another Family Organizer account without notice could be useful. Is very very intrusive IMO.

    Even an alternative where your account get frozen (read-only) for a week or your account converted temporally to individual could be solutions to this problem.

    Talking to other people on the community and seeing other questions on the forum i think that this is a very real concern.

    Javier

  • Ben
    Ben
    edited May 2020

    Thanks Javier. I understand that perspective. We have an issue internally where we are tracking this kind of feedback and I've added your most recent comments to that. Thank you for taking the time to share with us.

    Ben

    ref: dev/b5/b5#4843

This discussion has been closed.