Privacy Policy

Overview

ChatShield is a data loss prevention (DLP) and AI governance tool for small and medium-sized businesses. It helps organisations prevent staff from accidentally sharing sensitive data with AI chat tools such as ChatGPT and Claude.

Our core commitment: your message content never touches our servers. All message scanning happens locally in the browser extension. ChatShield only receives metadata about which rules were triggered — never what was typed.

What Data We Collect

Account Information

When you create an organisation or are invited as a staff member, we store your email address, name (if provided), organisation name, and role (admin or staff). This is necessary to operate the service and manage your team.

Activity Metadata

When the browser extension blocks or warns about a message, it sends a metadata event to our servers containing:

• Which DLP rule was triggered (rule ID)
• Which AI tool was being used (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude)
• What action was taken (blocked, warned, sent, overridden, or reported as false positive)
• Your user ID and organisation ID
• A timestamp

This metadata is used to power the admin dashboard — showing which rules fire most often, which team members may need additional training, and whether rules have high false positive rates.

Billing Information

Payment processing is handled entirely by Stripe. We store your Stripe customer ID and subscription ID to manage your plan. We do not store credit card numbers or bank details on our servers. See Stripe's Privacy Policy for how they handle payment data.

Extension Configuration

The browser extension periodically fetches your organisation's DLP rule configuration from our servers. This configuration contains rule patterns and UI settings — it does not contain any user-generated content. Configuration is cached locally in your browser so the extension continues to work offline.

What Data We Do Not Collect

We take a strict approach to data minimisation. ChatShield does not collect, store, or transmit:

• Message content — the text you type into AI chat tools is scanned locally in the browser extension and is never sent to our servers, not even in hashed or truncated form
• Browsing history or web activity beyond the declared host permissions
• Keystrokes (beyond interception at the point of message submission)
• Cookies or session data from AI chat tools
• Data from websites other than the supported AI tools and the ChatShield splash page

How the Browser Extension Works

The ChatShield browser extension runs as a content script on supported AI chat sites. When you submit a message, the extension:

1. Intercepts the submission before it reaches the AI tool
2. Evaluates the message against your organisation's DLP rules — entirely locally in your browser
3. If a rule matches, blocks or warns about the submission and shows which rule was triggered
4. Sends a metadata event (rule ID, action, timestamp) to our servers for admin reporting

At no point does the message content leave your browser via ChatShield. The rule evaluation engine runs entirely on your device.

Browser Extension Permissions

The extension requests the minimum permissions required to function:

• Storage — to cache DLP rule configuration locally and store the extension authentication token
• Alarms — to schedule periodic configuration refresh (every 30 minutes)
• Host permissions for specific AI chat sites (ChatGPT, Claude) and chatshield.ai — to inject the content script that scans messages before submission

The extension does not request access to all websites, browsing history, or any other broad permissions.

Third-Party Services

ChatShield uses the following third-party services:

• Stripe — payment processing and subscription management
• Neon — database hosting (stores account and activity metadata only)
• Vercel — web application hosting
• Resend — transactional email (magic link sign-in, team invitations)

We do not sell, share, or transfer user data to any third party for advertising, analytics, or any purpose unrelated to operating the service.

Data Retention

• Account data— retained for the duration of your organisation's subscription. Deleted upon account closure.
• Activity metadata — retained for admin reporting purposes for the duration of the subscription.
• Extension data — cached configuration and authentication tokens are stored locally in your browser and cleared when the extension is uninstalled or the user is removed from the organisation.

Your Rights

If you are in the UK or EEA, you have the right to access, correct, or delete your personal data. Organisation admins can remove team members from the admin dashboard, which deletes their account and associated activity metadata. To request deletion of an entire organisation account, contact us at the address below.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated to organisation admins via email. The “last updated” date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision.

Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy or how ChatShield handles your data, contact us at privacy@chatshield.ai.