Face ID lock is really insecure. It can be bypassed with a photograph, or with someone scanning you when you’re asleep or detained. In many jurisdictions police are allowed to force you to unlock face ID lock without a warrant (and the same goes for fingerprint locks).

I’m sorry to not respond to your question, but your sense of privacy shouldn’t be built on a false basis. Please use a password instead.

I started journaling with a digital journal app that has fingerprint and PIN unlock, in adaddition to the ability to encrypt individual entries, with all data stored locally. It has made a big difference. I do find that I am more honest, sort of. I have a constant worry that someone would see my entries somehow. I started encrypting those entries (the really sensitive ones) and writing in a different language (I know that others could still understand it if they spoke that language, but I’m counting on the fact that it’s not the majority language where I live.)

So, I’m the opposite of you. I used to journal on my computer, in an encrypted system. No one could (theoretically) access the files without having the digital key that I have under my control (I won’t go into details, but there’s a bit more security involved).

However, sitting at the computer and writing whatever I was thinking generally ended up in me expounding on projects that I wanted / needed to work on, or something that I wanted to research, or some other random thing that really had nothing to do with how I was feeling or anything that I needed to get on the screen.

The best change for me was getting a fountain pen. I started with a fountain pen as a winter hobby, that it would be fun to sit down and work on improving my penmanship. I figured it was something that I could do even if they power went out here during a storm (which still sometimes happens). This also seemed like a good idea to help with fine motor skills which can deteriorate with age.

Then I started writing a journal as an experiment, and I quickly found that I was writing down things that I had never written in my computer journal. It seemed that I was more free to write on paper than I was on the computer – or at least there wasn’t the distractions that I encounter all the time.

Also, something else shifted: intentionality. Writing with a pen and paper has an intentionality to it that writing on the computer doesn’t have… It’s too easy to go back and edit what I’ve put on the screen with a computer, it’s not as easy to do that with pen and paper.

There is something else about this, there have been studies that show that different regions of the mind are engaged when writing with a pen vs. a computer… However, those studies have been narrowly focused, and there is still quite a bit of debate around them.

Security for the pen & paper approach is fairly simple: there are fire and waterproof lock boxes that you can get for about $50-$100 USD. Assuming you can trust people to not steal your key, that’s a more secure way to keep your journals than anything digital is.

Just to be clear on something: any device that connects to the internet is not secure. Yes, you can take efforts to make things more secure, but if there is any chance that it can be accessed externally it isn’t secure. My system with encryption keys is one of the better security systems for digital information, but it’s still not 100 percent. My offline, paper notebooks, stored in lock box in a fireproof safe are more secure than anything on my computer.

I am glad you found a way to journal, that allows you to be more honest! Everyone has a different way to do it, and I think it’s really important to feel comfortable and safe in the way one puts their thoughts down.

If you journal, how honest are you really? Do you hold back? What would change if you knew nobody could ever read it?

I journal with a notebook and pen. So yeah, technically my partner could find it and read it, but I never really consider it an option. It does not really play a role in how honest I am or not. Because there is always one person, who can read it, and that’s me. So for me, honesty in journaling is about being honest towards myself. And it’s something I try to learn and do more.

I’ve started to journal again around New Year, so about 3 months ago. So my main goal is consistency and keeping the routine up. And I notice that most days I keep it surface level. I don’t think every entry has to be deep and meaningful. And sometimes the energy is just not there to explore some thought or feeling I had through out the day. I try to be more honest, but for me it usually takes a few times. Like it might start one day just writing something general like “Feeling tired, didn’t sleep well.”. And over the course of a few days I figure it out step by step and at some point I allow my self to actually think, explore and write down the thought. It’s a learning process, but I agree that honesty is a really important part of journaling.

It is all good until the cops charge you and use it against you.