A straight answer about your information.

Four things, before the detail.

• Claude is a cloud service. What you type, upload, or connect is sent to Anthropic's servers to be processed. It does not run privately on your computer. Anyone who tells you otherwise is describing a different product.
• Your conversations are not used to train Claude unless you switch that on. On personal plans it is off by default, and it is your setting to control — not mine.
• I never see your accounts, your passwords, or your files. Everything is built in your accounts, on your screen, with you holding the mouse.
• None of it is required. You can do the entire session without connecting a single account and without a single financial document. Plenty of people should.

What actually happens when you use Claude

When you ask Claude something, your words travel to Anthropic's servers, get processed there, and the answer comes back. Same as your email, your bank's website, or your accounting software — but worth stating plainly rather than glossing over, because it is the thing people are really asking about.

So the honest question isn't "does my information touch an outside company?" It already does, in a dozen places. The question is which companies, under what written terms, and what do I choose to hand over. That's a question you already know how to answer in your business. This page is here so you can answer it here too.

What Anthropic does — and doesn't do — with it

These are Anthropic's published terms, not my characterization of them. Every one is linked below so you can read it yourself rather than take my word for it.

We check this setting together during your session, in your own account, on your own screen. You'll see exactly where it lives and what it's set to. That's more useful than anything I could promise you here.

What I never have access to

This is the part I control completely, so I can be absolute about it.

• I never ask for, receive, or store a password. Not once, not temporarily.
• I never log into your accounts, and I don't have credentials to do so.
• Nothing is set up under my accounts or routed through my systems. Everything we build lives in yours, and it stays yours if we never speak again.
• I don't retain copies of your business documents. Anything you share to prepare for the session is used for the session.

The session itself is you driving and me guiding — screen shared, you clicking, me telling you where to click. If you'd rather I never see a particular screen, say so and we'll work around it. That's a normal request, not a difficult one.

Our calls are recorded and transcribed so I can pay attention to you instead of taking notes. I ask permission at the start of every call, and "no" is a complete answer — I'll take notes by hand instead.

Connectors: what they do, and why they're optional

A connector lets Claude read your email, calendar, or files so it can answer questions about your actual work rather than in generalities. That's where a lot of the value is — and it does mean the content it reads is processed by Claude to produce the answer.

Connecting an account is a choice, made per account, and reversible. You grant access, and you can revoke it from your own Google or Microsoft account settings at any time, with or without me. Nothing about the program depends on you leaving it on.

What I'd tell you not to put in

Not because something bad would happen — because there's no good reason to, and good judgment beats blanket trust. I say this to every client, in the session, out loud.

• Anything covered by a duty you owe someone else — patient records, client files under privilege, anything with someone else's name on it that isn't yours to share. If you're a professional with confidentiality obligations, your obligation doesn't relax because the tool is convenient.
• Full account numbers, card numbers, or government ID numbers. There is essentially never a reason. If you want help with a statement, redact the account number first — the analysis works identically without it.
• Passwords, security answers, or recovery codes. Ever, to anything.
• Anything you'd be uncomfortable seeing in a screenshot. That instinct is well-calibrated. Trust it.

For anything on this list, the answer usually isn't "don't do it" — it's "do it with the sensitive parts removed." Redacted statements reconcile just as well as unredacted ones. We'll set that habit up in the session.

If you need stronger terms than a personal plan

If you're in a regulated profession, or you simply want contractual commitments rather than settings you toggle, Anthropic's business plans — Team and Enterprise — operate under different terms from personal plans, with administrative control over retention and organization-level data settings.

I'd rather point you at the source than summarize commercial terms I don't control. If that's your situation, read them directly, and bring questions to the call — it's a reasonable place for your own counsel or IT person to weigh in before you decide anything.

The part most people actually want to hear

If your answer after reading all this is still no, that's a legitimate answer and I'd rather you reach it here than halfway through a session. No hard feelings and no follow-up.