Security

The most consequential attack surface in cloud-AI workflows is architecturally absent from SafeIdea.

Original documents never leave the attorney's workstation. SafeIdea's cloud services handle authentication, license verification, and usage metering. None of them touch client content. The breach that exposes confidential client information cannot happen, because the data was never in a place it could be breached.

What stays local

Three regions. Three inventories.

Region 01 · Local

What never leaves the attorney's machine.

  • Original client documents
  • Real client names, party identifiers, deal terms, case numbers, addresses
  • The Matter-Level Masking Dictionary for every matter the attorney has opened
  • The Local Cross-Matter Masking Dictionary for the attorney
  • The Firm Masking Dictionary (lives in the firm's chosen storage, not on SafeIdea servers)
  • Chat history
  • Audited Session Records
  • Compliance Receipts (produced on demand from local records)

Region 02 · SafeIdea cloud

What touches SafeIdea's cloud services.

  • Authentication credentials, for license-authenticated access to the application
  • License verification, to confirm the seat is active and current
  • Usage metering, for billing

None of those touch client content. SafeIdea's cloud services do not see prompts, documents, masked content, masking dictionaries, or session records.

Region 03 · Cloud AI provider

What touches the cloud AI provider.

Only what the attorney approves.

The patent-pending Masking Engine detects and replaces confidential entities across 11 Entity Types before any content leaves the machine. The AI provider sees masked content, never originals.

[ REGION 01 · ATTORNEY'S MACHINE ] STAYS HERE Original documents Real client names Masking Dictionaries Chat history Audited Session Records Compliance Receipts MASKING ENGINE Detect · review · approve. Masks before transmit. Local. Patent pending. [ REGION 02 · SAFEIDEA CLOUD ] Authentication License verification Usage metering No client content. Ever. AUTH · LICENSE no client content [ REGION 03 · CLOUD AI PROVIDER ] Cloud AI provider The AI the attorney chose Claude ChatGPT Gemini Perplexity Harvey CoCounsel Vincent Clio Legora Irys Intapp Receives only masked content. Never originals. Runs on the attorney's existing AI subscription. MASKED PROMPT via attorney's existing AI account RESPONSE · RESTORED LOCALLY
SafeIdea boundary
Component
Data flow

Access

Authenticated access. Seat-managed.

Access to SafeIdea requires authenticated credentials. Each license is a seat managed by the Firm Administrator, who assigns the email address that uses each seat. The Firm Administrator can reassign at any time. Reassignment automatically terminates the previous email's access.

One seat supports the assigned attorney's multiple personal computers. The standard pattern is an office machine and a home machine, both authenticated against the same seat. Each install is a data island; matter dictionaries, audited session records, and compliance receipts stay on the machine where the work was done. SafeIdea does not sync those artifacts across the attorney's machines, by design.

When an attorney leaves the firm, the Firm Administrator reassigns the seat. The departing attorney's local artifacts remain on their previous workstation and are subject to the firm's normal device-management policy. SafeIdea is not the mechanism by which firm property leaves with a departing employee; the firm's existing device controls are.

For solo practitioners, the attorney is the Firm Administrator. No additional setup.

Seat assignment

FIRM ADMINISTRATOR Manages seat assignments SEAT 01 ana@firm.example 2 machines · active SEAT 02 reed@firm.example 2 machines · active SEAT 03 lin@firm.example previous REASSIGN noor@firm.example new assignment Reassignment terminates the previous email's access automatically.

What crosses the wire

Authentication, license, and metering only. In transit, encrypted.

SafeIdea's cloud services for authentication, license verification, and usage metering use TLS 1.3 in transit. API keys are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. Cryptographic keys live in the operating system keychain; they are never hardcoded into the application and never exported.

In transitTLS 1.3 At restAES-256-GCM Key storageOS keychain

Client documents, prompts, and chat history never reach SafeIdea servers; the encryption detail applies to the metadata traffic that handles licensing and billing.

The masked prompt that travels from the attorney's machine to the chosen cloud AI provider travels over the AI provider's transport, on the attorney's existing account. SafeIdea does not interpose its own transport between the attorney and the provider; the masking happens before transmission and the transport is the provider's standard one.

This page will be updated as the SafeIdea security program matures and additional detail can be stated with confidence.

On SOC 2

Why SOC 2 is not the right frame.

SOC 2 audits an organization's controls over the customer data it handles. That is a meaningful answer for cloud SaaS vendors who hold customer data on their servers. SafeIdea is built so that the data that matters most never reaches SafeIdea in the first place. Original documents, real client names, deal terms, and case numbers stay on the attorney's machine.

SafeIdea's cloud services handle authentication, license verification, and usage metering. They use industry-standard encryption in transit. None of them touch client content. A SOC 2 audit of those services would document controls over the wrong layer for the confidentiality problem.

The load-bearing protection is in the inventory and access sections above. SafeIdea answers Rule 1.6 with architecture, not with audit.

Your IT team can confirm the data path in one conversation.

Original documents stay on the attorney's machine. SafeIdea's cloud services handle authentication, license verification, and usage metering. The cloud AI provider sees only masked content. The architecture is built to make the security review short rather than long.

Charter Customer access by application for a limited time. 30-day money-back guarantee on admission. No seat minimums.

If your security review needs detail this page does not cover, contact us. We respond directly.