Claude Shared Chats Surface in Search Results Containing API Keys and Personal Data

Conversations shared through Anthropic’s Claude chatbot that contain exposed API keys, cryptocurrency wallet details, CVs and other personal data are appearing in public search results, sparking fresh concerns over how widely those chats can spread online.

The discovery triggered debate across the AI community after developers demonstrated that some shared Claude pages could be found through search engines, raising questions over whether users realised those public links could become broadly discoverable. Anthropic’s shared chats are private by default, but conversations become publicly accessible when users generate a share link. There is no evidence that private Claude conversations were breached or leaked.

Developers Warn of Sensitive Claude Chats in Search

The latest concerns emerged after developer Om Patel warned on X that a large number of Claude shared conversations had become searchable online, claiming users had discovered API keys, credentials, cryptocurrency wallet information, resumes, internal company documents and other sensitive material.

Developer Ziwen Xu separately said they were able to search for and read strangers’ Claude conversations through Brave Search, calling on Anthropic to address the issue.

The posts spread quickly across the AI community, although several users disputed the characterisation that Claude had suffered a privacy failure.

‘These are not private conversations. Users explicitly set them to public URLs,’ one developer wrote, while another commented that ‘public artifacts are public.’

Several users also reported that many of the indexed pages had already disappeared from Google search results by Thursday, although some remained discoverable through other search engines.

The reports also highlighted differences between search engines. Several developers said Google had already stopped returning many Claude share pages by Thursday, while some conversations could still be located through other search engines. Reuters could not independently determine how many shared Claude pages remained indexed across individual search platforms at the time of publication.

How Claude’s Sharing Feature Works

According to Anthropic’s support documentation, Claude conversations remain private unless a user deliberately creates a public share link.

When users click Share, Claude generates a public web page containing a snapshot of the conversation at that moment. Anyone with the link can access the shared page, although subsequent messages remain private unless the conversation is shared again.

Attached files are excluded from shared conversations, and users can review or revoke shared links through Settings > Privacy > Shared Chats.

Anthropic also instructs web crawlers not to index shared conversations through its publicly available robots.txt file.

Researchers note, however, that publicly shared pages can still become discoverable if users post those links on websites, blogs, forums or social media, allowing search engines to find them through external references.

Similar Exposure Reported Last Year

The latest reports follow a similar incident in 2025, when hundreds of publicly shared Claude conversations appeared in Google search results.

At the time, Anthropic said users controlled whether conversations were shared publicly and that the company did not provide search engines with directories or sitemaps containing shared chats. Many of the indexed pages were later removed from Google.

Based on the latest reports it appeared the issue has resurfaced, although developers said the current search results appear significantly more limited than those seen last year.

Anthropic had not publicly commented on the latest reports at the time of publication.

Users Urged To Recheck Old Shared Chats

Developers who highlighted the issue urged Claude users to review any conversations they had previously shared publicly and remove links containing credentials, financial information or sensitive work material.

Anthropic allows users to manage or revoke public conversation links through the Shared Chats section of their account privacy settings.

Originally published on IBTimes UK