Who we are
Clerk is operated by Michael McCarthy, a sole trader in Cork, Ireland. For any privacy-related query, contact us at hello@clerk.ie. We act as a data controller for account data and as a data processor for any client information you enter into Clerk in the course of your practice.
What data we collect
- Account data — your name, practice email address, and authentication details for sign-in.
- Usage data — the questions you ask Clerk, the answers returned, and aggregate usage metrics used for capacity planning and quality assurance.
- Client context — any client profile fields and accountant-authored notes you choose to enter. This is used solely to personalise Clerk’s answers for that client.
We do not collect special-category personal data. We do not sell or share your data with advertisers or data brokers.
Where your data is stored
All Clerk data is hosted on Google Cloud Platform in the europe-west1 region (St. Ghislain, Belgium). Your data remains within the European Economic Area at rest. Data is encrypted at rest and in transit using industry standard ciphers (AES-256 for disk encryption, TLS 1.2+ for network traffic).
How we use AI providers
Clerk uses Anthropic’s Claude models to generate answers to tax research queries. Under our Anthropic API agreement, Anthropic does not train its models on your prompts or responses. Queries are transmitted over encrypted connections and used only to produce the answer you receive.
Embedding generation for our document corpus is performed with Google Vertex AI in the same EU region. No personally identifying client information is sent to Vertex AI as part of the corpus pipeline.
GDPR compliance and your rights
We process your personal data in accordance with the GDPR. You have the right to:
- Access the personal data we hold about you.
- Rectify data that is inaccurate or incomplete.
- Erase your account and associated data.
- Port your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
- Object to specific processing activities, and to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.
To exercise any of these rights, email hello@clerk.ie. We will respond within 30 days.
Retention
Account data is retained for as long as your subscription is active and for a short period afterwards to comply with tax and accounting record requirements. When you delete your account, personal data is purged from production systems within 30 days and from encrypted backups within 90 days.
Security
Access to production systems is restricted, authenticated with multi-factor authentication, and logged. All client traffic is served over HTTPS. We practise defence-in-depth, scoping every database query by the authenticated accountant so one firm’s data cannot be accessed by another.
Complaints
If you believe we have not handled your personal data correctly, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commission. Their contact details and complaints form are at dataprotection.ie. We’d appreciate the chance to resolve any concern first — email hello@clerk.ie.
Changes to this policy
We update this policy when our practices change. The “Last updated” date at the top of the page reflects the most recent revision. Material changes will be notified by email to active subscribers.