Security & Sovereignty
Built for the profession that invented confidentiality.
Your ethical obligations don't pause when you use technology, and Squire™ is built around them. Your clients' information is stored in your jurisdiction, and your documents, chats, drafts and notes - and the parties and clients on your matters, your tables and what your workflows produce - are encrypted under your firm's own key. The AI that analyses your documents works from pseudonyms. And nothing you do in Squire is used to train a model.
Stored where you practise
Your firm's documents and records are stored in your jurisdiction, on encrypted infrastructure.
Your firm's own key
Sensitive records are encrypted with AES-256-GCM under a key unique to your firm. One firm's key can never open another's.
Analysed under pseudonyms
Before a document reaches the AI that analyses it, the people in it are swapped for pseudonyms.
Grounded, not trained
Squire does not train AI models on your work. It grounds its answers in the law and your matter, and cites them.
Layers of protection
Five layers between your client and everyone else.
No single control carries the weight. Each layer assumes the one outside it could fail.
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1
Encrypted in transit
Everything between your browser and Squire travels over HTTPS, TLS 1.2 or later.
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2
Encrypted at rest
Your firm's database is encrypted on disk, and the documents you upload are stored encrypted.
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3
Your firm's own key
Your documents, AI chats, drafts and notes, the descriptions of your matters and tasks, the parties and clients on your matters, your tables and what your workflows produce are also encrypted under a 256-bit key unique to your firm. Titles stay readable, so you can find your work.
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4
Sealed to each record
Each encrypted record is bound to its place. Copied onto another record, or into another firm, it will not open.
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5
Pseudonyms before analysis
The AI that analyses your documents sees pseudonyms where your clients' names and ID numbers were. The key to them stays under your firm's key.
De-identification
Two models, two jobs.
Before a document reaches the AI that analyses it, Squire finds the people in it. The model that finds them and the model that does the legal work are kept apart: neither does the other's job, and only Squire holds the key between them. Here is one sentence from a lease, as each part of the system sees it.
You and your team
The people you've given access to the matter
Thabo Mokoena (ID 9013155123080) signed the lease on 3 March.
Squire's storage
In your jurisdiction
AES-256-GCM · kq9F2vXr7Lw0Tn4Hb8Ye1Qa6Ms5Ud3Zp…
Encrypted under your firm's key, and sealed to this one record.
The detection model
Separate, with one job
["Thabo Mokoena"]
ID numbers, contact details and the parties Squire already knows are caught by Squire itself. Names go to a separate model that reads short excerpts, with no tools, no memory and no context about your matter, and can only answer with a list. Squire makes the swap itself.
The analysis model
Does the legal work
[NAME:3f2a91c0] (ID [ID_NUMBER:7be04d12]) signed the lease on 3 March.
Works from the pseudonymised text, and never sees the key that turns a pseudonym back into a name.
Squire's staff
Only through a separate, logged sign-in
Our admin console sits behind a separate staff sign-in, and every entry is recorded in a tamper-evident log. In a support chat, a person from our team joins only when you invite them.
Pseudonymised is not anonymised. Squire can put the names back, so the text remains personal information under POPIA and the GDPR. That's why the key never leaves your firm's encryption.
Sovereignty
Where your data lives, stated plainly.
Sovereignty is a promise you should be able to check, so here is exactly where things stand today, what we're building next, and what we can arrange.
Today
Stored in your jurisdiction
Your firm's documents and records are stored in your jurisdiction, and your documents, chats, drafts, notes, parties, tables and workflow results are encrypted under your firm's own key.
Today
Pseudonymised before analysis
Legal analysis is done by enterprise AI providers that are contractually barred from training on your data. They receive pseudonymised text. Today, that analysis may run outside your jurisdiction.
Coming soon
Analysed in your jurisdiction
We're moving AI processing onto servers we operate in your jurisdiction. First comes personal-information detection, the one step that has to read names in order to remove them.
By arrangement
On-premise, by arrangement
On-premise deployment is available for Enterprise customers by arrangement. It takes custom integration work that depends on your network and hardware, so we scope and price it with you.
Privilege & confidentiality
Confidential inside your firm, too.
Privilege isn't only about outsiders. Squire gives each matter, chat and collaborator exactly the access they need, and no more.
Need-to-know matters
Make each matter firm-wide, team-only or private. Firm admins get no back door into a matter they're not on.
Private AI chats
An AI chat starts private to the lawyer who opened it. It's shared with the matter team only if they choose.
Outside collaborators, contained
Share a single matter, draft or chat with a client or outside counsel. Access is time-boxed, revocable and logged, and guests can never use the AI.
Guest collaborationClient conversations, kept separate
Talk with your client inside Squire. Internal messages stay internal, and nothing a client types can set the AI to work.
Client conversationsOutside counsel, by your consent
Counsel from a partner practice can work in your firm only after your owner accepts the engagement. Every action they take is logged for you.
Partner counselConflict checks, built in
Squire flags a party who appears on opposite sides across your matters, including through related parties.
Conflict detectionIntegrity and control
Some protections are about proof rather than access: evidence a signature will stand on, and a person's say before anything the AI produces counts.
Signatures with evidence
Signers need no account and confirm with a one-time code. Squire records a fingerprint of the exact document they saw and a tamper-evident log of every step, then seals the signed PDF. It's a simple electronic signature, not an advanced or qualified one, and the evidence is what makes it defensible.
E-signatureContracts kept to their matter
A contract on a team or private matter is as confidential as the matter itself. Dates the AI extracts create no tasks and send no reminders until a person confirms them.
Contract managementNothing changes until you accept
When Squire drafts in your document, nothing changes without your click. An AI edit that would remove content waits for a person to confirm it, and every change is saved as a version you can restore.
AI draftingGrounded, not trained
Squire reads the law. It doesn't memorise your clients.
Squire doesn't train a model on your work. When it answers, it reads from four layers of curated sources and cites what it read. Your firm's documents inform your firm's answers, and nobody else's.
Primary Law
Judicial Precedent
Authoritative Commentary
Firm Work Product
How the intelligence layers work
Authorities checked before you see them.
Squire checks the authorities its answers cite against the law itself. If it can't verify a citation, it takes it out and says so. If a cited law has been repealed or amended since, the answer carries a note.
South African courts have referred practitioners to the Legal Practice Council for relying on cases that don't exist. Checking your authorities is your duty, and Squire checks them first. You can still open every source yourself.
POPIA, GDPR & your professional rules
Your obligations, mapped.
Here is how Squire supports the obligations your firm already carries. It doesn't replace your own compliance assessment, but it should make that assessment shorter.
| Obligation | What it asks | How Squire helps |
|---|---|---|
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POPIA s19 POPIA, section 19 |
Secure the personal information you hold | Layered encryption, a key unique to your firm, need-to-know access and audit trails. |
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POPIA s72 POPIA, section 72 |
Care with transfers outside the Republic | Your data is stored in your jurisdiction. The AI that analyses it receives pseudonymised text, and processing in your jurisdiction is on its way. |
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POPIA s22 POPIA, section 22 |
Notify when personal information is compromised | Our terms commit us to notify affected people without undue delay, and the Information Regulator within 72 hours. |
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POPIA s23–25 · GDPR Art 15 & 17 POPIA, sections 23–25 GDPR, Article 15 GDPR, Article 17 |
Answer access and erasure requests | We can trace where a person's details appear in your firm's records, and help you respond, including erasure. |
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GDPR Art 32 GDPR, Article 32 |
Names “pseudonymisation and encryption” as security measures | Both are on by default, for every firm. |
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LPC Code of Conduct, 3.6 Code of Conduct, paragraph 3.6 |
Maintain privilege and confidentiality | Need-to-know matters, private AI chats, guests who can't reach the AI, and no training on your work. |
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The courts, on fictitious citations Mavundla v MEC [2025] ZAKZPHC 2 Northbound Processing [2025] ZAGPJHC 661 |
Check your authorities before you rely on them | Citations are checked against the source. Ones that can't be verified are removed, and the answer says so. |
Each obligation links to its official text: POPIA as published in the Government Gazette, the GDPR on EUR-Lex, the Legal Practice Council's Code of Conduct, and the judgments on SAFLII.
Accountability
A record you can stand behind.
When a client, a court or the Information Regulator asks what happened, you should have the answer.
Your firm's audit log
Owners and admins see who joined, what changed, and who outside the firm was given access. Every matter keeps its own activity timeline.
AI requests on record
Squire logs its AI requests as fingerprints. That's proof of what was sent, without keeping what it said.
Staff access, logged
Squire's admin console sits behind a separate staff sign-in, and every entry is written to a tamper-evident log.
Sign-in and sign-out
Every account can add two-step sign-in - a passkey or an authenticator app - and a firm can require it of everyone who works in it; single sign-on with your identity provider can be arranged. Passwords and API keys are kept only as one-way hashes, and removing a member ends their sessions and keys at once.
AI governance
We're building our AI management system to ISO/IEC 42001. That means a register of every AI system in Squire, evaluations before release, an incident register and an enforced retention schedule.
Received a signed document? Check its seal — nothing is uploaded.
Sovereignty & POPIA, answered
The two questions we're asked most before a firm signs off on Squire.
What does "sovereign legal AI" mean, and why does it matter for South African law firms?
"Sovereign" means your firm's data, and the law Squire works from, belong to your jurisdiction. Squire's answers are grounded in your country's law, read from curated local sources and cited. Your firm's data is stored in your jurisdiction, its documents, chats, drafts and notes - and the parties and clients on its matters, its tables and what its workflows produce - are encrypted under a key unique to your firm, and before the AI analyses a document, the people in it are swapped for pseudonyms. Today that analysis may run outside your jurisdiction; we are moving AI processing onto servers we operate in your jurisdiction, starting with the step that detects personal information. On-premise deployment is available for Enterprise customers by arrangement. For a law firm this isn't just an infrastructure preference - it's an extension of privilege and the duty of confidentiality.
Does Squire meet POPIA and GDPR requirements?
Squire is designed to meet POPIA and GDPR requirements - South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act and the EU's General Data Protection Regulation. Your firm's data is stored in your jurisdiction, its documents, chats, drafts and notes - and the parties and clients on its matters, its tables and what its workflows produce - are encrypted under a key unique to your firm, and documents are pseudonymised before AI analysis - pseudonymisation and encryption being the two security measures the GDPR names. Beyond that, Squire can trace where a person's details appear in your firm's records to answer an access request, supports erasure requests, and logs its AI requests as proof of what was sent without keeping the content. That is the operational evidence a responsible party needs to answer a data subject or the Information Regulator, not just a compliance claim in a privacy policy.
Can our firm require two-step sign-in (MFA) for everyone?
Yes. An owner or admin opens Organization Settings → Security, chooses the date it starts - two weeks out by default, at most 90 days - and turns it on. Members who haven't set up a passkey or an authenticator app yet are emailed, and nothing is blocked until that date. From then on, a password or an emailed link alone no longer opens the firm's work - in the browser, the API, or AI tools connected to Squire: people who have a passkey or an app confirm it's them, and people who have neither are asked to set one up first. It covers members, counsel working for the firm, and guests the firm has shared work with. No one is removed from the firm, and on the Team tab owners and admins can see which members and counsel sign in with a passkey, an authenticator app, or a password only. Enterprise firms can also sign in through their own identity provider with single sign-on, which is set up by arrangement.
See these controls in a real demo.
Bring your IT or security lead along and we'll walk through the architecture in detail.
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