Alibaba reportedly bans employees from using Claude Code

Alibaba will ban employees from using Anthropic's Claude Code programming tool starting July 10, citing security risks. The ban follows Anthropic's efforts to prevent Chinese users from accessing its models, including an experiment that could secretly identify Chinese users. Alibaba is directing employees to use its own Qoder tool instead.

China’s Alibaba will ban employees from using Anthropic’s programming tool Claude Code, starting on July 10, according to multiple https://www.reuters.com/world/china/alibaba-ban-claude-code-workplace-over-alleged-backdoor-risks-source-says-2026-07-03/ reports https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202607032148/alibaba-set-to-ban-staff-from-using-claude-over-security-fears . Anthropic already prohibits Chinese companies, as well as foreign entities owned by those companies, from using its models. The company has reportedly been working to close loopholes https://www.ft.com/content/ad033063-60f9-4c0c-8d8a-9193a83e6f60 that allow Chinese users to access Claude. According to a recent Reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1ujila1/anthropic embedded spyware in claude code and/?solution=d4edbe076e50661cd4edbe076e50661c&js challenge=1&token=7afd7253fec22262ff1c52b1703fe9ecfa243d1261b7ed21d12c5103149b3258&jsc orig r= , some of that loophole-closing involved a version of Claude Code that could secretly identify Chinese users. Anthropic’s Thariq Shihipar said in a post on X https://x.com/trq212/status/2072079729331777817 that this was “an experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation.” Distillation https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/03/artificial-intelligence-definition-glossary-hallucinations-guide-to-common-ai-terms/ is a practice where AI models are trained on the outputs of other models. “The team has landed stronger mitigations since then and we’ve actually been meaning to take this down for a while,” Shihipar said. Nonetheless, Alibaba has reportedly classified Claude Code as high-risk software and is instructing employees to use the company’s own Qoder tool instead.