Claude Users' Chats Leaked on Google, Exposing Sensitive Info

A major security issue has been discovered in the AI chatbot Claude, where users' shared conversations and Artifacts have been found publicly searchable on Google.

Problem Originates from Claude's Share Chat Feature

The issue appears to have originated from Claude’s “share chat” feature, which allows users to create links that enable anyone with the assigned URL view a conversation or project. “Anyone with the link can view,” warns Claude’s interface. The language clearly implies that the feature is mainly intended to allow users to share their chats with friends, colleagues, and small groups — not the whole internet. Google Docs, for example, offers a similar feature and those documents don’t end up publicly accessible on Google.

• The issue was first flagged by a Reddit user on Saturday and was first reported by 404 Media on Monday morning.
• As of Monday afternoon, a test search by TechCrunch on Google following the method outlined in the Reddit post does not return any results, suggesting that the exposure has somehow been remediated.

Exposed Information Includes Sensitive Data

Before the issue was fixed, Futurism reported finding “a detailed medical report of a real patient, clinical trial results that included patient names, documents sharing the names and phone numbers of primary school-aged children, company documents marked for internal use only, and employee reviews that included personal information about workers.”

• Exposed Artifacts included code and work notes.
• In at least one case, Fortune reported, a chat labeled "shared by Anthropic" also showed Claude producing erotica.

Anthropic's Response and Google's Statement

Anthropic appeared to blame users for the exposure. When asked about what happened, the company told TechCrunch that share links only appear in search results when they've been posted somewhere search engines can see, like a forum or social media post; it added that a link sent privately to someone stays out of search.

Google spokesperson Ned Adriance told TechCrunch that “Neither Google nor any other search engine controls what pages are made public on the web, and these pages were indexed across many search engines. We give site owners clear controls to decide whether pages can be crawled or indexed, and we always respect those directives.”

Similar Issues in the Past

Last year, Forbes reported a similar issue in which hundreds of Claude chats were indexed by search engines — at the time, Google estimated it had indexed just under 600 conversations before the pages disappeared from search results. How closely the current exposure tracks that scale hasn't been independently confirmed, though multiple users reported finding shared conversations through the same type of Google search query used to surface last year's cache.

• To review which Claude chats you set to have a public link, go to Settings -> Privacy -> Shared Chats.
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