What’s in the code
A QR code is just text a camera can read. Ours contains a single web address — this site’s /c/<code> page — where the code is 22 characters drawn at random from letters and digits — 128 bits of randomness, the same order of strength as the keys that protect online banking sessions. There are more possible codes than there are atoms in a bathtub of water; guessing one is not a realistic thing.
Deliberately, the code is not derived from anything about you or the recipient: not a name, a date, an email, a card number or an internal ID. Two cards to the same person get two unrelated codes. Reading the code tells you nothing except where the page lives.
What happens when they scan
- They open the phone camera and point it at the square on the back of the card. iPhone and Android cameras both recognize QR codes; a small link appears.
- They tap it. The phone’s browser opens the link. There is nothing to install and nothing to sign in to.
- LifeCard’s server looks the code up. If it belongs to an active, printed card, the page loads with the sender’s family name, the headline, the message, and — when a video was added — the player.
- The video streams the way a web video does, sized for the phone. Videos are up to 90 seconds.
- Underneath, there are three one-tap reactions — ❤️ 🥹 😂 — that go back to the sender, and a note that the link is private.
The page is plain and fast on purpose. It’s meant to be opened by a grandparent with a three-year-old phone on a slow connection.
Who can watch
The rule printed on every recipient page is the honest one: “Private link — anyone with this LifeCard link can watch. It isn’t listed anywhere.”
- The page is never linked from LifeCard’s website, never indexed by search engines (it asks them not to), and never discoverable by browsing. The only way to reach it is to have the card, or to be sent the link by someone who scanned it.
- There is no login, because the person scanning is your mother, not your account. Asking her to make a password to watch a video would defeat the point.
- If the recipient forwards the link to a cousin, the cousin can watch — the same way she could hand the card across the table. Treat the video as you would the card: personal, but not secret.
What you see on your side
Your card’s tracking timeline runs Created → Printed → Mailed → In transit → Delivered → QR scanned → Video watched. “Delivered” comes from USPS scan events on the card; “Scanned” and “Watched” come from the page itself, along with any reaction they tapped. You get a notification for the first watch. Scans are counted per viewer per hour so one impatient grandchild refreshing doesn’t look like a family reunion.
If the card is lost, damaged, or won’t scan
- Lost in the mail. Physically, it’s a postcard: whoever finds it could scan it and see the video, exactly as they could read the message on the back. If that bothers you for a particular card, email support@lifecard.app and we can turn that card’s link off. A switched-off link shows the same neutral message as an unknown one — “This LifeCard link isn’t available.” — so it reveals nothing.
- Won’t scan. Flat card, decent light, camera a few inches away, hold still. The camera app works better than a third-party scanner. The code survives normal mailing wear; a deep crease or water damage across the square is the usual culprit.
- Damaged beyond scanning. The link isn’t printed as text, so there’s nothing to type. Email us with the sender’s name and the recipient’s and we’ll help.
What we don’t do
- We don’t put anything in the QR code except the link. No hidden data, no tracking parameters.
- The recipient page sets no advertising cookies and loads no third-party analytics. The only thing it remembers is a random, anonymous marker used to count scans.
- The page never exposes the video file’s real location. The player receives a short-lived, signed address each time the page is opened, so the video can’t be hot-linked or scraped from the page source.
- We never sell data — yours or your recipients’. See Privacy.
The QR video is included with every LifeCard — $4.99 for one, $2.50 each in a pack of 20, $2 each in a pack of 50, printing and postage included. Add something they can’t print.