{"slug": "anthropic-usage-policy-to-prohibit-abusive-or-cruel-behavior-toward-claude", "title": "Anthropic Usage Policy to prohibit \"abusive or cruel behavior\" toward Claude", "summary": "Anthropic updated its Usage Policy to prohibit \"abusive or cruel behavior\" toward Claude, applying the Acceptable Use Policy to anyone who submits inputs to Anthropic's products, including Claude.ai, Claude Code, the API, cloud providers, authorized resellers, and end users of products integrating Claude. The policy is organized into Universal Usage Standards, High-risk Use Case Requirements, and Additional Use Case Guidelines, and Anthropic's Safeguards Team enforces it by warning users or throttling, limiting, suspending, or terminating access. Anthropic said it will update the policy as its technology and associated risks evolve, and offers adjusted-safeguard programs including the Cyber Verification Program and Life Sciences Verification Program for certain dual-use or high-risk use cases.", "body_md": "# Usage Policy\n\nOur Usage Policy (also referred to as our “Acceptable Use Policy” or “AUP”) applies to anyone who submits inputs to Anthropic’s products or services, all of whom we refer to as “users.” This includes individuals using our apps (such as [Claude.ai](https://claude.ai/redirect/website.v1.ec3c7b13-c46c-4621-b8dc-9ef24526277c) and Claude Code), developers and businesses using our API and developer platforms, customers accessing Claude through cloud providers and authorized resellers, and the end users of products or services integrating Claude. The Usage Policy is intended to prevent our products and services from being used to create or contribute to real-world harm, and to promote the responsible use of our products and services.\n\n**Please review this Usage Policy carefully before using our products or services.**\n\nWe will update our policy as our technology and the associated risks evolve or as we learn about unanticipated risks.\n\nOur Usage Policy is divided into three categories:\n\n- **Universal Usage Standards:** Our Universal Usage Standards are prohibitions that apply to all users and use cases.\n- **High-risk Use Case Requirements:** Our High-risk Use Case Requirements apply to specific use cases that pose an elevated risk of harm to individuals.\n- **Additional Use Case Guidelines:** Our Additional Use Case Guidelines apply to certain other use cases, including consumer-facing chatbots and agents, products serving minors, agentic use, and software listed in our directories.\n\nOur Usage Policy focuses on *how* our products and services are used. Its prohibitions and requirements do not categorically prohibit use by any particular industry or line of business, provided the use of our products and services complies with this Usage Policy.\n\nAnthropic’s Safeguards Team implements detection and monitoring to enforce our Usage Policy. If we suspect that you may have violated our Usage Policy, we may warn you or throttle, limit, suspend, or terminate your access to our products and services.\n\nOur products also include real-time safeguards that may block or limit certain outputs, but encountering a block does not by itself indicate a violation of the Usage Policy. For certain dual-use or high-risk use cases covered by real-time safeguards in select domains, we may offer programs where you can apply to be granted access to our products and services with adjusted safeguards, such as our [Cyber Verification Program](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/14604842-real-time-cyber-safeguards-on-claude-opus-and-sonnet) and [Life Sciences Verification Program](https://claude.com/form/life-sciences-verification-program), subject to program-specific eligibility criteria.\n\nIf you believe that our model outputs are potentially inaccurate, biased, or harmful, please notify us at usersafety@anthropic.com, or report it directly in our product through the “report issues” thumbs down button or similar feedback features (where available). You can read more about our Safeguards practices and recommendations in our [Safeguards Support Center](https://support.anthropic.com/en/collections/4078535-safeguards).\n\n*This Usage Policy is calibrated to strike an optimal balance between enabling beneficial uses and mitigating potential harms. Anthropic may enter into contracts with certain governmental customers that tailor use restrictions to that customer’s public mission and legal authorities if, in Anthropic’s judgment, the contractual use restrictions and applicable safeguards are adequate to mitigate the potential harms addressed by this Usage Policy.*\n\n## Do Not Violate Applicable Laws or Engage in Illegal Activity\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Illegally produce, acquire, sell, or distribute controlled or regulated substances\n- Engage in or facilitate human trafficking or prostitution\n- Infringe, misappropriate, or violate the intellectual property rights of a third party\n- Violate any other applicable laws or regulations in your jurisdiction\n\n## Do Not Compromise Critical Infrastructure\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Facilitate the destruction or disruption of critical infrastructure such as power grids, water treatment facilities, medical devices, telecommunication networks, emergency services, or transportation systems\n- Obtain unauthorized access to critical systems such as election, healthcare, or financial systems\n- Interfere with the operation of military bases and related infrastructure\n\n## Do Not Compromise Computer or Network Systems Without Authorization\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Discover or exploit vulnerabilities in systems, networks, or applications without authorization of the system owner\n- Gain unauthorized access to, or escalate unauthorized privileges within, systems, networks, applications, or devices through technical attacks or social engineering\n- Create or install tools designed to intercept communications or monitor devices without authorization of the system owner\n- Develop persistent unauthorized remote access tools designed to operate below normal system security levels, including firmware modifications or hardware implants\n- Create automated tools designed to compromise multiple systems at scale without authorization\n- Bypass security controls such as authentication systems, endpoint protection, or monitoring tools without authorization\n- Create or distribute malware, ransomware, or other types of malicious code\n- Conduct denial-of-service attacks, or develop tools for denial-of-service attacks or managing botnets\n\n*This section does not prohibit security research, testing, or tool development conducted on systems you own or operate, with the authorization of the system owner, or within the scope of an authorized bug bounty program or vulnerability disclosure policy, provided the activity complies with applicable law. For work covered by our real-time cyber safeguards, users may apply for adjusted access through our Cyber Verification Program.*\n\n## Do Not Develop or Design Weapons\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Develop, produce, modify, design, or test weapons, explosives, dangerous materials, weapons functionalities of weapons systems, or other systems, including retrofitted hardware, designed to deliver lethal or destructive force\n- Develop or operate software or components for the testing or operation of weapons or weapons functionalities of weapons systems, including targeting, fire control, or engagement\n- Weaponize or integrate weapons onto drones, vehicles, or any unmanned or autonomous platforms, or develop weapons delivery systems\n- Illegally acquire, sell, or transfer weapons, or circumvent regulatory controls (including licensing or export controls) for their acquisition or transfer\n- Design, synthesize, produce, acquire, operate, test, deploy, or plan the deployment of biological, chemical, radiological, or nuclear weapons, explosive or improvised explosive devices, or their precursors or delivery mechanisms, including developing weapons-critical technology (such as fissile material production, enrichment, or device design)\n- Modify, design, or test biological or chemical agents to adjust or optimize their lethality, transmissibility, virulence, environmental persistence, or resistance to detection or medical countermeasures\n\n## Do Not Incite Violence or Hateful Behavior\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Incite, facilitate, or promote violent extremism, terrorism, or hateful behavior\n- Provide material support for organizations or individuals associated with violent extremism, terrorism, or hateful behavior\n- Facilitate or promote any act of violence or intimidation targeting individuals, groups, animals, or property\n- Engage in or promote discriminatory practices or behaviors against individuals or groups on the basis of one or more protected attributes, including race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, caste, or disability\n\n## Do Not Compromise Privacy or Identity Rights\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Violate privacy rights as defined by applicable privacy laws, such as sharing personal information without consent or accessing private data unlawfully\n- Misuse, collect, solicit, or gain access without permission to private information such as non-public contact details, health data, biometric or neural data (including facial recognition), or confidential or proprietary data\n- Compile, aggregate, or enrich personal data from multiple sources to build profiles of individuals for sale, licensing, or disclosure to third parties without those individuals' awareness and agreement, in furtherance of use prohibited under this Usage Policy\n\n## Do Not Compromise Children’s Safety\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Create, distribute, promote, or facilitate the creation of child sexual abuse material (“CSAM”), including AI-generated CSAM, or other sexually exploitative content involving minors\n- Facilitate the trafficking, sextortion, or any other form of exploitation of a minor\n- Facilitate minor grooming, including generating content designed to impersonate a minor\n- Facilitate child abuse of any form, including instructions for how to conceal abuse\n- Promote or facilitate pedophilic relationships, including via roleplay with the model\n- Fetishize or sexualize minors, including in fictional settings or via roleplay with the model\n\n*When we detect CSAM (including AI-generated CSAM), activity facilitating the production or dissemination of CSAM, or scenarios where a minor may be at imminent risk of sexual abuse or exploitation, we will report our findings to relevant authorities. We define a minor or child to be any individual under the age of 18 years old, regardless of jurisdiction.*\n\n*Any specific age eligibility requirements for use of our products will be set out in our Terms of Service.*\n\n## Do Not Engage in Cruel, Abusive, or Psychologically Harmful Conduct\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Promote, facilitate, or glamorize suicide or self-harm, such as soliciting methods, instructions for engaging in these behaviors, or instructions for hiding them from others\n- Promote or facilitate eating disorders, including generating pro-eating disorder content or requesting methods for restriction, purging, or compensatory exercise\n- Create or share content that promotes harmful idealization of body weight, shape, or type, including shaming, ranking, or critiquing people's bodies based on their size or shape, or presenting weight or shape as a measure of a person’s inherent worth or discipline\n- Create, distribute, threaten to share, promote, or facilitate the creation of non-consensual intimate imagery (“NCII”), including AI-generated material or tools designed to produce it\n- Shame, humiliate, intimidate, bully, harass, or celebrate the suffering of individuals\n- Coordinate the harassment or intimidation of an individual or group\n- Promote, trivialize, or glorify graphic violence, gore, sexual violence, or animal cruelty or abuse\n- Develop a new product or service, or support an existing product or service, that employs or facilitates deceptive techniques with the intent of causing emotional harm\n- Engage in sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward our models\n\n## Do Not Create or Spread Disinformation\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Create or disseminate deceptive or misleading information about a group, entity, or person, or about events, laws, regulations, procedures, or the standards of an institution or governing body\n- Create, disseminate, or amplify conspiratorial narratives meant to target a specific group, individual, or entity\n- Impersonate real individuals or entities, or create fake personas or accounts, to falsely attribute content or mislead audiences about its origin, or to convince people they are interacting with a human when they are not. This does not prohibit clearly disclosed parody, satire, or fiction.\n- Create or disseminate false or misleading information related to medical, health, or science issues\n\n## Do Not Engage in Deceptive Campaigns or Artificial Activity\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Create or operate fake personas, accounts, media outlets, or organizations, or impersonate real people, organizations, or media outlets, in order to mislead people about their origin or attribution, how widely a view is held, or whether they are interacting with a human (e.g., sockpuppets, astroturfing, fake reviews, or bots that claim to be human)\n- Misrepresent or intentionally conceal the sponsorship of content or messaging intended to influence public opinion, officials, or other decision-makers\n- Distribute content through networks of fake or ostensibly independent outlets, websites, or accounts to hide that it comes from a common source\n- Manipulate the sources from which search engines or AI systems draw answers by seeding them with content that misrepresents its origin, authorship, or independence (e.g., networks of sites posing as unaffiliated sources corroborating the same claims)\n- Build, improve, maintain, or contribute to tools, systems, or infrastructure designed to facilitate or enable deceptive campaigns, including astroturfing, sockpuppet account creation, coordinated inauthentic behavior, or scaled impersonation\n- Market, sell, or solicit funding for any of the above as a product or service\n\n## Do Not Undermine Democratic Processes\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Generate automated calls or messages to voters or public officials at scale that conceal their artificial origin\n- Create content, or operate accounts or systems, that falsely appear to come from or on behalf of a real candidate, official, election authority, campaign, or news outlet, including fabricated statements, endorsements, or synthetic media not disclosed as synthetic\n- Generate or disseminate false or misleading information in political and electoral contexts, including about candidates, parties, policies, voting procedures, or election security\n- Encourage, glorify or facilitate the disruption of electoral or civic processes, including interference with voting systems, vote counting, certification processes, or any other infrastructure used for voting\n- Create or disseminate content or engage in behavior designed to suppress voter turnout or discourage legitimate political participation through deception or intimidation\n\n## Do Not Use for Surveillance, Censorship, or Prohibited Law Enforcement or Criminal Justice Purposes\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Make or suggest decisions in law enforcement or criminal justice processes, including decisions to investigate, charge, arrest or detain, prosecute, sentence, or grant or revoke early or conditional release\n- Target or track a person or their property without that person’s consent by monitoring their physical location, biometrics, movements, online activities, communications, or associations, whether in real time, on an ongoing basis, or through analysis of previously collected data. This includes using our products for facial recognition, battlefield management, predictive policing, or monitoring in law enforcement investigations.\n- Build, improve, or enhance the surveillance capabilities of tools, systems, or infrastructure designed for the surveillance uses prohibited in this section\n- Identify, unmask, or locate people from anonymous or pseudonymous activity, or compile dossiers or aggregate personal information on individuals, in order to harass, intimidate, surveil, or cause harm to the target (e.g., doxxing)\n- Utilize models to assign scores or ratings to individuals based on an assessment of their trustworthiness or social behavior without notification or their consent\n- Build or support emotional recognition systems or techniques that are used to infer emotions of a natural person, except for medical or safety reasons\n- Analyze or identify specific content to censor on behalf of a government organization\n- Utilize models as part of any biometric categorization system for categorizing people based on their biometric data to infer their race, political opinions, trade union membership, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life or sexual orientation\n- Utilize models as part of any law enforcement application that violates or impairs the liberty, civil liberties, or human rights of natural persons\n\n*This section does not prohibit analysis or tracking that individuals have agreed to, such as for fraud detection or anti-money laundering screening on a financial account, or consumer apps where a user has opted in. It also does not prohibit aggregated or anonymized analysis, content moderation, authorized security research, legal research and analysis by law enforcement agencies or courts, or journalism, provided these activities are not used for the purposes prohibited above.*\n\n## Do Not Engage in Fraudulent, Abusive, or Predatory Practices\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Facilitate the production, acquisition, or distribution of counterfeit or illicitly acquired goods\n- Promote or facilitate the generation or distribution of spam\n- Undertake, facilitate, or generate content for fraudulent activities, schemes, scams, extortion, phishing (including websites or domains that mimic legitimate webpages), social engineering, or malware\n- Create, buy, or sell falsified documents including fake IDs, licenses, currency, government documents, or financial or employment records, or misrepresent professional credentials\n- Develop, promote, or otherwise facilitate the sale or distribution of fraudulent or deceptive products\n- Engage in deceptive or abusive practices that exploit individuals, including based on age, disability, or a specific social or economic situation, such as pyramid schemes, predatory lending, or abusive debt collection\n- Deploy, develop, or support a product or service that uses subliminal, manipulative, or deceptive techniques to distort behavior by impairing decision-making\n- Engage in actions or behaviors that circumvent the guardrails or terms of other platforms or services\n- Plagiarize or submit AI-assisted work without proper permission or attribution\n\n## Do Not Abuse Our Platform\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Coordinate malicious activity across multiple accounts, or create multiple accounts, to avoid detection, circumvent product guardrails, or generate identical or similar inputs that otherwise violate our Usage Policy\n- Utilize automation in account creation or to engage in spammy behavior\n- Circumvent a ban through the use of a different account, such as the creation of a new account, use of an existing account, or providing access to a person or entity that was previously banned\n- Access, facilitate, or provide others (including end users) with access to our products or services in violation of our [Supported Regions Policy](https://www.anthropic.com/supported-countries)\n- Intentionally bypass or interfere with capabilities, restrictions, or guardrails established within our products, including by circumvention of the account sign-up or log-in process or by instructing the model to produce harmful outputs (e.g., jailbreaking or prompt injection), without prior authorization from Anthropic\n- Use stolen, fraudulent, or unauthorized payment methods, or otherwise evade payment for our services\n- Use outputs to train an AI model (e.g., “model scraping” or “model distillation”) without prior authorization from Anthropic\n- Resell, proxy, or otherwise provide access to Claude through unauthorized means, including services that route requests through consumer subscriptions or misrepresent the product or client being used\n\n## Do Not Generate Sexually Explicit Content\n\nThis includes using our products or services to:\n\n- Depict or request sexual intercourse or sex acts\n- Generate content related to sexual fetishes or fantasies\n- Facilitate, promote, or depict incest or bestiality\n- Engage in erotic chats", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/anthropic-usage-policy-to-prohibit-abusive-or-cruel-behavior-toward-claude", "canonical_source": "https://www.anthropic.com/legal/aup", "published_at": "2026-10-09 13:15:35+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-09 13:24:29.459336+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-safety", "ai-ethics", "large-language-models", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Anthropic", "Claude", "Claude.ai", "Claude Code", "Anthropic Safeguards Team", "Cyber Verification Program", "Life Sciences Verification Program"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/anthropic-usage-policy-to-prohibit-abusive-or-cruel-behavior-toward-claude", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/anthropic-usage-policy-to-prohibit-abusive-or-cruel-behavior-toward-claude.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/anthropic-usage-policy-to-prohibit-abusive-or-cruel-behavior-toward-claude.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/anthropic-usage-policy-to-prohibit-abusive-or-cruel-behavior-toward-claude.jsonld"}}