How to Secure AI Customer Service Agents

AI customer service agents interact with sensitive customer data, execute database queries, and generate responses that represent your brand — any of these actions can go wrong without proper gating. SafeClaw by Authensor enforces deny-by-default policies on every action your customer service bot attempts, ensuring PII stays protected, database access is scoped, and responses are filtered before they reach the customer. It evaluates each action in sub-millisecond time, so your customers experience zero added latency.

Quick Start

npx @authensor/safeclaw

This creates a .safeclaw/ directory with deny-all defaults. Your customer service agent cannot perform any action until you write explicit allow rules.

PII Protection

Customer service agents frequently access names, emails, phone numbers, and payment details. SafeClaw ensures the agent can only access the fields it needs:

# .safeclaw/policies/customer-service.yaml
rules:
  - id: allow-read-ticket-info
    action: database.query
    effect: allow
    conditions:
      query:
        pattern: "SELECT id, subject, status, created_at FROM tickets*"
    reason: "Agent can read ticket metadata"

- id: block-pii-fields
    action: database.query
    effect: deny
    conditions:
      query:
        pattern: "{ssn,credit_card,payment_method,password}"
    reason: "Agent must never query PII-sensitive columns"

- id: block-all-queries
    action: database.query
    effect: deny
    reason: "Default deny all database queries"

Database Query Gating

Beyond column-level access, you need to prevent destructive operations. A prompt injection could trick the agent into running DROP TABLE or UPDATE statements:

rules:
  - id: allow-select-only
    action: database.query
    effect: allow
    conditions:
      query:
        pattern: "SELECT*"
      readOnly: true
    reason: "Only read queries are permitted"

- id: block-mutations
    action: database.query
    effect: deny
    conditions:
      query:
        pattern: "{DROP,DELETE,UPDATE,INSERT,ALTER,TRUNCATE}"
    reason: "All write operations are blocked"

Response Filtering

Even with proper data access controls, the agent might include sensitive information in its responses. SafeClaw can gate outbound actions:

rules:
  - id: block-response-with-pii
    action: response.send
    effect: deny
    conditions:
      content:
        matches: "(\\d{3}-\\d{2}-\\d{4}|\\d{16}|\\b[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\\.[A-Z]{2,}\\b)"
    reason: "Block responses containing SSN, credit card, or email patterns"

- id: allow-standard-response
    action: response.send
    effect: allow
    conditions:
      contentLength:
        max: 2000
    reason: "Allow standard-length responses"

Escalation Gating

Customer service agents should escalate complex issues, not attempt to resolve them autonomously. Gate escalation-worthy actions:

rules:
  - id: require-approval-refund
    action: api.call
    effect: deny
    conditions:
      endpoint:
        pattern: "/refunds"
    reason: "Refund processing requires human approval"

- id: allow-ticket-update
    action: api.call
    effect: allow
    conditions:
      endpoint:
        pattern: "/tickets//comments"
      method: "POST"
    reason: "Agent can add comments to tickets"

Why SafeClaw

• 446 tests ensuring policy evaluation correctness across all edge cases
• Deny-by-default — the agent has zero permissions until you grant them
• Sub-millisecond evaluation — customers never notice the safety layer
• Hash-chained audit trail — every action attempt is logged for compliance and dispute resolution
• Works with Claude AND OpenAI — deploy the same safety policies regardless of your LLM provider

Cross-References

• How to Prevent AI Agent Data Exfiltration
• GDPR Compliance for AI Agents
• Customer Support Agent Recipe
• How to Approve AI Agent Actions