Security and your data
Plain answers.
What SpadaShield keeps, where it runs, who else touches it, and what we don’t have yet.
Where it runs
The checking service and its database run on Google Cloud in Northern Virginia (region us-east4). Traffic is encrypted in transit, and Google Cloud encrypts stored data by default.
You sign in with your Microsoft work account, so we never see your password.
What happens to a message
When you send a message on one of the listed AI sites, the extension sends it to our checking service first. The checks run on our own servers; no AI model reads your message to check it.
If the service can’t be reached within a few seconds, the message isn’t sent, and you’re told why.
One exception to “nobody else sees it”: if a message contains a citation, such as a paper or article reference, the citation text alone is looked up in public research indexes to see whether it exists.
What the record keeps
For each check: what was found, what happened, who sent it and when, and the first 500 characters of the message. That includes drafts checked as you type.
A message held by one of your firm’s own rules is kept without its text: the matched value is masked.
Every entry is chained to the one before it, so a changed or missing entry shows. The export carries a digital signature that you can check offline with our standalone checker, without us.
Who else touches your data
No AI model provider receives your messages to check them. We don’t sell your data, use it for advertising or train AI models on it.
| Service | What for | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Google Cloud (US, us-east4) | Hosting: the checking service, database, cache, keys and logs | Everything the record keeps; service logs include sign-in email addresses |
| Microsoft | Sign-in | Your sign-in, through your own Microsoft account |
| CrossRef, OpenAlex, PubMed, Semantic Scholar, arXiv, Wikipedia | Checking that a cited source exists | The citation text only, and only when a message contains a citation |
| Cloudflare | Hosting this website, and counting visits with Web Analytics (no cookies) | Visits to this website; no product data |
Deleting your data
Ask, and we delete your workspace: from our live systems within 30 days, and from every backup within 60.
Sign-in accounts that belong only to your firm are deleted. If someone also belongs to another firm’s workspace, only their membership in yours is removed. We keep a hashed receipt showing that the deletion happened, not your data.
What we don’t have yet
No SOC 2 report and no HIPAA business associate agreement today. If you need one of those, tell us, and we’ll say plainly where things stand.
To report a security problem, email eric@northgatestrategic.com.