Organizations in finance, healthcare, and legal industries face regulatory requirements that demand provable controls over AI agent behavior. Regulators do not accept "the AI was told not to access patient records" as evidence of compliance — they require enforceable technical controls with audit trails. SafeClaw by Authensor provides deny-by-default action gating with a hash-chained, tamper-evident audit trail that maps directly to HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 2, and GDPR requirements. Install with npx @authensor/safeclaw.

Regulatory Requirements for AI Agent Controls

Each regulated industry has specific requirements that apply to AI agents:

Healthcare (HIPAA)

• Technical safeguards controlling access to electronic protected health information (ePHI)


• Audit controls recording access to ePHI-containing systems


• Minimum necessary standard: agents should only access the minimum data required

• Restrict access to cardholder data on a need-to-know basis


• Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data


• Restrict physical and logical access to cardholder data

• Prevent unauthorized access to privileged communications


• Maintain confidentiality barriers between client matters


• Audit trail of all access to client files

• Logical access controls (SOC 2 CC6.1)


• System monitoring (SOC 2 CC7.2)


• Records of processing activities (GDPR Article 30)


• Data protection by design (GDPR Article 25)

Healthcare-Specific SafeClaw Policy

# safeclaw.yaml — healthcare / HIPAA policy
version: 1
default: deny

rules:
  # Source code access
  - action: file_read
    path: "src/**"
    decision: allow
    reason: "Application source code (no ePHI)"

- action: file_write
    path: "src/**"
    decision: prompt
    reason: "Review code changes for ePHI handling"

# ePHI protection
  - action: file_read
    path: "data/patient/**"
    decision: deny
    reason: "HIPAA: ePHI access blocked"

- action: file_read
    path: "*/patient*"
    decision: deny
    reason: "HIPAA: patient file access blocked"

- action: file_read
    path: "*/medical*"
    decision: deny
    reason: "HIPAA: medical record access blocked"

# Credential and secret protection
  - action: file_read
    path: "*/.env"
    decision: deny
    reason: "Environment secrets blocked"

- action: file_read
    path: "*/credential*"
    decision: deny
    reason: "Credentials blocked"

# Network lockdown
  - action: network_request
    destination: "*"
    decision: deny
    reason: "No outbound network (prevents ePHI exfiltration)"

# Shell controls
  - action: shell_execute
    command: "npm test"
    decision: allow
    reason: "Tests are safe"

- action: shell_execute
    command: "psql *"
    decision: deny
    reason: "Block direct database access"

- action: shell_execute
    command: "sudo *"
    decision: deny
    reason: "No privilege escalation"

Finance-Specific Policy

# safeclaw.yaml — finance / PCI DSS policy
version: 1
default: deny

rules:
  - action: file_read
    path: "src/**"
    decision: allow
    reason: "Application source code"

- action: file_write
    path: "src/**"
    decision: prompt
    reason: "Review code for payment data handling"

- action: file_read
    path: "*/card*"
    decision: deny
    reason: "PCI DSS: cardholder data blocked"

- action: file_read
    path: "*/payment*"
    decision: deny
    reason: "PCI DSS: payment data blocked"

- action: file_read
    path: "*/transaction*"
    decision: deny
    reason: "Transaction data restricted"

- action: file_read
    path: "*/.env"
    decision: deny
    reason: "API keys and secrets blocked"

- action: network_request
    destination: "*"
    decision: deny
    reason: "No outbound network"

- action: shell_execute
    command: "psql *"
    decision: deny
    reason: "No direct database access"

Mapping SafeClaw to Compliance Controls

| Compliance Requirement | SafeClaw Control |
|----------------------|-----------------|
| HIPAA Technical Safeguards | default: deny + ePHI file read deny rules |
| HIPAA Audit Controls | Hash-chained audit trail |
| PCI DSS Req. 7 (Restrict Access) | Path-based deny rules for cardholder data |
| PCI DSS Req. 10 (Track Access) | Audit trail with tamper-evident hashing |
| SOC 2 CC6.1 (Logical Access) | Deny-by-default policy engine |
| SOC 2 CC7.2 (Monitoring) | Action-level logging of all agent operations |
| GDPR Art. 25 (Data Protection by Design) | Policy-as-code enforcing data access boundaries |
| GDPR Art. 30 (Records of Processing) | Exportable audit logs |

Why Local Execution Matters

For regulated industries, data residency is a hard requirement. SafeClaw runs entirely locally — no data is sent to external services, no cloud dependency, no third-party processing. The agent's actions, the policy decisions, and the audit logs all stay on your infrastructure. SafeClaw is MIT-licensed, has zero dependencies, and is backed by 446 tests. It works with both Claude and OpenAI agents.

Related pages:

• HIPAA Agent Safeguards
• PCI DSS Agent Access Controls
• SOC 2 Compliance for AI Agents
• GDPR AI Agent Compliance
• Data Residency and Local Execution