AdminUnderstand CMEK
What CMEK covers on Claude Enterprise
Look up which Claude Enterprise data your key encrypts, what turns off or changes, and what stays under Anthropic's key.
For Claude Platform, see What CMEK covers on Claude Platform. Beta and research preview features might not be covered by customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK) and can break in CMEK organizations.
Encrypted with your key
- Chat content, including skills and plugins.
- Chat attachments and project attachments.
- Artifacts, including Claude Design, Claude Slides, and Claude Docs in conversations and the Artifacts tab.
- Claude Code on the CLI, including message content.
- Cowork in Claude Desktop.
- Office agents.
- Claude in Chrome.
- Claude Science, which is in beta.
- Plugins API (beta) plugin versions: each version's description, release notes, components, and files. That page lists which requests still work while your key can't be used.
- Compliance API local session transcripts from sessions on users' machines. If your key can't be used, the messages endpoint returns 503 Service Unavailable instead of transcript content. Session metadata is still listed.
- Backups and snapshots, which inherit the key.
Turned off or changed
This list is not exhaustive. Review it with your team before you set up CMEK.
| Feature | What people see |
|---|---|
| Chat search | Off. Members can't search past chats, because chat titles and content are encrypted with your key. The Search and reference chats toggle stays off, so Claude can't either. |
| Project knowledge search (RAG) | Off. Project knowledge loads into each conversation's context instead of being indexed and searched. A project can use substantially less knowledge, and the rest is left out. |
| Claude Code on the web | Off. New sessions can't be started, even if an admin turns the product on. |
| Claude in Slack | Off. Claude declines requests, even if an admin turns the product on. |
| Claude Code Desktop | Off until an admin turns it on. Available for local sessions once turned on under claude.ai > Organization settings > Claude Code. |
| Artifacts | Changed. Artifacts, including Claude Design, Claude Slides, and Claude Docs in conversations and the Artifacts tab, cannot be turned on in organizations that also use ZDR. In organizations with HIPAA readiness, an Owner must first accept the terms for using them. |
| Artifact publishing and sharing | Changed. Claude Code cannot publish artifacts. However, artifacts made in chat or Cowork can be shared within your organization, but not publicly. |
| Standalone Claude Design app | Not supported. See Encrypted with Anthropic's key. |
| Analytics: smart reports and contribution metrics | Off. Certain analytics are disabled, regardless of admin settings: Claude smart reports (beta, under claude.ai/analytics/insights) and Claude Code contribution metrics from GitHub (beta, under claude.ai/analytics/claude-code). |
| Analytics: skills and connectors | Changed. Admin analytics for skills and connectors, in the claude.ai analytics dashboard and through the Claude Enterprise Analytics API, don't include usage in chat, and hide the names of custom skills, plugins, and connectors. |
| Organization data exports and audit log exports | Off. Both are under claude.ai > Organization settings > Data and privacy. |
| Response ratings (thumbs up and thumbs down) | Off. Members can't rate Claude's responses. |
| Skill and plugin security scanning | Off. The setting can't be turned on, and skills and plugins are installed without a scan. |
| Claude Security and routines | Off. Beta and research preview features, turned off regardless of admin settings. |
Encrypted with Anthropic's key
The features that store this data stay available, but the data isn't encrypted with your key. You can turn off some of these features in Settings.
| Data | Details |
|---|---|
| Existing data | Written before your key takes effect. |
| Standalone Claude Design app | The standalone Claude Design app at claude.ai/design is not supported with CMEK, and its data might not be encrypted under your key. The standalone app is closing. Claude Design in conversations and the Artifacts tab is encrypted under your key, as listed under Encrypted with your key. |
| Personal preferences and Cowork Global instructions | Personal preferences - Instructions for Claude section and Cowork Global instructions. These are set at the account level and shared across all of a user's organizations. |
| Account data for users in your organization | Includes names, email addresses, and profile pictures. |
| Preserved records | Anthropic can preserve specific records in three narrow cases. |
Where CMEK does not apply: Claude Code telemetry
When Claude Code connects through an LLM gateway or proxy (a custom ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL), CMEK does not apply to Claude Code's operational telemetry. To turn this telemetry off, set the DISABLE_TELEMETRY environment variable to 1, as described under Telemetry services in the Claude Code documentation.
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