Securely roaming private data from one client computer to another in a network. A home client application generates a first key in response to a password, and encrypts designated private data as a function of the first key. A server receives and stores the encrypted private data. A roaming client application generates the first key in response to the password, and decrypts encrypted private data transferred from the server to obtain the private data. The invention further provides users the ability to retrieve encrypted private from the server even when the user cannot remember the password associated with the first key. Also, the server has no knowledge of the private data or the keys.