Privacy notice

SpadaShield is a Chrome extension that checks messages before you send them to AI chat sites and checks citations in their answers.

Last updated: 21 October 2026

Who we are

SpadaShield is made by NorthGate Strategic LLC, a Wyoming LLC based in Uniontown, Ohio ("NorthGate", "we"). This notice covers the spadashield.com website and the SpadaShield service: the Chrome extension and the server it talks to. It says what we collect, why, who else sees it, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do. Questions: eric@northgatestrategic.com.

The short version

• If you don't sign in, your messages stay on your computer.
• If you sign in, we check the messages you send to AI chat sites, so we see the messages we check.
• For citations in an AI's answer, we get only the citations and what the answer cites them as, never the answer.
• We keep a record of each check, with an excerpt of the message in which the details we find are replaced.
• We don't sell your data, use it for advertising, or train AI models on it. No AI model reads your message to check it.
• Ask, and we delete your workspace: from our live systems within 30 days, and from every backup within 60 days.

What SpadaShield does

SpadaShield works on AI chat sites (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and the others listed in the Chrome Web Store and on spadashield.com). Before a message goes to one of them, it checks the message for personal details, passwords and keys, and, for organizations, the organization's own rules. In the AI's answers, it marks each citation with what its source says.

If you don't sign in

Your messages stay on your computer. SpadaShield checks them there: it stops passwords and keys, and asks you before a message with a Social Security, card, bank account or medical record number is sent. Nothing about the message is sent to us. Citation checks need an account, so none run.

Even when you're not signed in, the extension contacts our server to see that it can reach it, to get its default settings, and to say it was installed or updated. Those requests carry a random number made for this installation, the extension's version and your browser's standard description of itself (its "user agent"). If you use the right-click check, we get how long the selected text was and which site you were on, never the text.

If you sign in

Your account

Your email address, and your name if you sign in with Microsoft (we read it from Microsoft). If you sign in with an email and password, the password goes to our server once to sign you in and is not kept in the extension. The extension keeps your sign-in on your computer so you stay signed in. When you sign in on SpadaShield's sign-in page, the extension also sends its random installation number with the sign-in.

Your messages to AI sites

To check a message, the extension sends its text to our server: while you type (after a short pause) and when you send. With it go the address of the AI page you're on, your account and organization, and the random installation number. If you attach a file, the extension reads its text on your computer and sends only the text, never the file or its name.

Details SpadaShield swaps out

When the check finds a detail such as a card or Social Security number, the AI site gets a placeholder like [CARD_1]. The real value stays on your computer, in that browser tab only; it is never sent anywhere or saved.

Some details are swapped on your computer before anything is checked or sent, so neither our server nor the AI site gets them: the words and names on your own "never send" list, and, when your workspace has the patient-details rule on, details from a patient's chart (room and bed numbers, ages over 89, admission, discharge and procedure dates next to a clinical word, patient initials, and medical record numbers). Your "never send" list is kept only in your browser; it is never sent to us or logged. A file that holds one of these details isn't sent.

Citations in AI answers

The extension finds the citations in an answer on your computer and sends us only these:

• each citation as the answer writes it (up to 300 characters; a whole reference that has no DOI, PubMed ID or ISBN, up to 600);
• the words the answer quotes from it (up to 300 characters);
• for a DOI, PubMed ID, ISBN or reference, what the answer cites the work as: its title, the authors' family names (up to 12), the year and, except for a book, the journal;
• the AI site's name, and a fingerprint of the answer that only your installation can make.

The answer itself is never sent.

Our server looks each citation up in the public source it names. The source gets the request from our server, so it sees the citation, not who asked:

• a federal regulation (a CFR section): eCFR gets the section, and a date if you ask to check it as of a date;
• a DOI: CrossRef gets the DOI, and says whether another registration agency (such as DataCite) holds it;
• a PubMed ID: PubMed, run by the US National Library of Medicine, gets the ID;
• an ISBN: Open Library, then Google Books, get the ISBN;
• a reference with no identifier: CrossRef's search gets the whole reference, PubMed's search gets the words of its title, and, for a book, Open Library's search gets its title and first author;
• a link: the linked website gets a request for that page.

The title, authors, year and journal an answer cites are compared with the source's record on our server; for a DOI, PubMed ID or ISBN they are not sent to the source. Our requests to CrossRef and PubMed carry NorthGate's own contact address, as those services ask, never yours.

When "Copy the reference" is offered on a found citation and you choose it, our server asks doi.org for that DOI's reference, and doi.org hands the request to the DOI's registration agency; only the DOI is sent.

If you mark a citation ("I read the source", "Mark as resolved", "Report a wrong result"), we get that choice and its reason from a fixed list, never your own note.

What else is recorded

Which AI sites from a fixed list you open each day (the site's name and the date only), what kind of account you're signed in to there (company, personal or unknown; never its email or name), a daily note that the extension was running and whether checks were on, the choices you make on SpadaShield's cards (for example "Send anyway", with the reason you type), and whether you acknowledged your organization's AI policy.

Your IP address

Our server sees your IP address on every request. We use it to limit how often an address can ask, and our hosting provider's request logs keep it.

What we keep

• For each message checked: what was found, what happened, who and when, and an excerpt of the message (at most 500 characters) with the details the check found replaced by placeholders, or up to 1,000 characters of the covered-up copy when details were swapped. Names and details the check did not find stay in the excerpt as written. Drafts checked while you type are recorded too.
• For a file: what was found, never its text or name.
• For a citation check: a reference to the check (its ID and a hash of its signed record), and earlier results sealed so that only the same workspace checking the same citation again can open them.
• A fingerprint of how a stopped or covered-up message was handled (the decision and the kind of finding, never any text) is kept in one pool across all organizations, with the first organization it was seen in (cleared when that organization's data is deleted).
• Logs: our logs include sign-in email addresses, IP addresses, times and error details. We use them to run, secure and fix the service.

Your organization's administrators can see their organization's records.

When you visit spadashield.com

• The site sets no cookies and has no forms.
• We count visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics. It doesn't use cookies, doesn't track you across sites, and reports page views, the referring page, browser and device type, and country.
• Cloudflare hosts the site and keeps standard request logs.
• If you email us, we get what you write and your email address. We use it to answer you and to set up your workspace.

Who else sees it

We share data only with the services that run SpadaShield, for that purpose:

We don't sell or rent personal information, and we don't share it for advertising. We may also disclose data when the law requires it, or to protect against fraud or abuse; we'll tell your organization unless the law forbids it.

Payments

SpadaShield takes no card payments today; firms are invoiced. Before card payment opens, we'll update this section to say what the payment processor receives and what we keep.

Where your data is stored

In the United States, on Google Cloud in Northern Virginia.

How long we keep it, and deleting it

• The record of checks is kept for as long as your workspace exists, unless you or your organization ask us to delete it.
• Our server's logs are kept for 30 days.
• When a workspace is deleted, its data is removed from our live systems within 30 days and from every backup within 60 days, and we keep a hashed receipt showing that the deletion happened, not your data.
• Sign-in accounts that belong only to that workspace are deleted; if someone also belongs to another workspace, only their membership in the deleted one is removed.
• To ask for deletion, or for a copy of your data, write to eric@northgatestrategic.com. Removing the extension deletes what it keeps on your computer, including your "never send" list.

Your organization and you

• A firm's workspace belongs to the firm. The firm decides who uses SpadaShield and what its rules are. We handle the workspace's data on the firm's behalf.
• Exporting the record: today we export a firm's record for it on request.
• Privacy law rights. Depending on where you live, privacy laws may give you more rights, such as access or deletion. Email us and we'll help, or pass the request to your organization when it's their data.

Security

• Data travels encrypted between the extension and our server.
• Google Cloud encrypts stored data by default.
• Signed-in requests carry a short-lived token that is renewed automatically.
• Access to the service's systems is limited to NorthGate.
• No security measure is perfect. We don't have a SOC 2 report or a HIPAA business associate agreement today.

Children

SpadaShield is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you're between 13 and 17, you may use SpadaShield only with a parent's or guardian's permission.

Changes

If we change what SpadaShield collects, we will update this page and the date at the top before the change ships, and say so in the extension's release notes. If a change matters, we'll tell workspace administrators first.

Contact

eric@northgatestrategic.com, NorthGate Strategic LLC, Uniontown, Ohio.