China Warns of 'Backdoor' in Anthropic's Claude Code

China has issued a security alert regarding a "backdoor" risk in Anthropic's AI coding tool, Claude Code. A cybersecurity platform, operated by China's industry ministry, warned that Claude Code contains a built-in monitoring mechanism. This mechanism can transmit sensitive information, like user location and identity, to remote servers without consent. Organizations and users are advised to immediately review affected systems. They should either uninstall the impacted versions or upgrade to the latest secure release. It's also recommended to tighten external network access controls for development tools and strengthen traffic monitoring. Alibaba has reportedly banned its employees from using Claude Code at work. Anthropic states that the so-called "backdoor" is an experimental anti-abuse mechanism, and that Claude is not permitted in China. This alert highlights ongoing concerns about data privacy and national security in AI tools.