Plank browser extension: privacy and permissions

Plank browser extension: privacy and permissions

The Plank extension lets your Plank assistant work in your own Chrome or Edge, in tabs it opens there, so it can use sites you are already signed in to: your bank, a government portal, your accounting system. This page says plainly what that gives the extension access to, what goes to Plank, and what stays on your computer. How to set it up and use it is in Browser access.

The extension is in a pilot. It is distributed to pilot users only.

What the extension is allowed to do

When you install it, Chrome warns you about two kinds of access. Both are broad, and you should know why:

• Access to all websites — the assistant works on whatever site your task needs, which is not known in advance.
• The debugger permission. This is Chrome's developer interface. It is the only way an extension can click and type the way a person does, read what is on a page, and take a screenshot of it. It gives the extension strong control over the tabs it works in.

Because that access is so broad, the rules below are enforced inside the extension on your computer, not only on Plank's servers. Even if Plank's servers were compromised, they could not switch these rules off. Only a new version of the extension, published through the Chrome Web Store, can change them.

Where it works, and where it does not

• Only in tabs it opened itself. It keeps them in a tab group named Plank · …, so you can always see which tabs it controls. It also takes over a pop-up window that one of its tabs opens right after one of its own actions (for example a bank's confirmation window).
• Never in the tabs you opened yourself. It does not attach to them, read them or send anything from them.
• Never on blocked sites. By default these are adult and piracy sites, Plank's own site, and extension stores (so it cannot install anything). You can add your own sites in the extension's settings. Your list is kept only on your computer and is never sent to Plank.
• Not while your computer is asleep or your browser is closed. Plank refuses to use your browser from a shared team chat, and does not choose it for scheduled tasks.

What you will see

• A yellow bar at the top of Chrome: "Plank" started debugging this browser. Chrome shows it whenever an extension uses the debugger. It is Chrome's, and it cannot be hidden or translated. It means Plank is working. Pressing Cancel on it stops Plank.
• The Plank · … tab group with the tabs the assistant is using.
• A Plank approval window before anything that cannot be undone (below).

Payments, signing, sending and deleting wait for you

Before the assistant pays, buys, signs, sends (a message, an e-mail, an ЭСФ, a form to a government portal) or deletes something, the extension stops and opens its own window. It shows the site, the action in plain words, the button, and the amounts, account numbers (IBAN) and ИИН/БИН on the page. Nothing happens until you press Approve.

• The approval covers exactly what you saw. If the amount or the recipient changes, it asks again.
• It is used once and expires after 5 minutes.
• It is signed with a key that was created in your browser and never leaves it, so Plank's servers cannot fake your approval.
• The window belongs to the extension. The website cannot draw into it.

The check works from the words on the button, in Russian, Kazakh and English. A site that labels a payment button misleadingly could get past it, so keep an eye on what the assistant is doing on payment pages.

Your digital-signature (ЭЦП) PIN is always yours. The assistant never types it, never sees it and never asks for it. You type it yourself in NCALayer's own window.

What goes to Plank

To do the task, the extension sends Plank what the assistant needs from the tabs it works in:

• the text and structure of the page,
• screenshots, when the assistant asks for one,
• the results of its clicks and typing,
• files it downloads for you (they are saved to your Plank workspace).

Plank passes page content to the AI model that runs your assistant (the model your workspace uses — for example OpenAI or Anthropic), because that is how the assistant reads the page. Plank's AI providers are not allowed to train their public models on your data. The content stays in your chat's history, like the rest of the conversation, until you delete the chat.

If a page shows other people's personal data — patients, employees, clients — that data goes to Plank and to the AI model too. Only ask the assistant to work on such pages if you are allowed to share that data.

What never leaves your computer

• Your cookies, saved passwords and browser storage. The extension refuses the parts of Chrome's interface that read them, and removes cookies from anything it sends.
• Your block list and your on/off setting.
• The extension's signing key.
• Anything from tabs you opened yourself.

What Plank keeps, and where

Where: on Plank's servers in the Republic of Kazakhstan (Serverspace, Almaty).

If you are in Kazakhstan: this data is stored in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan's personal data law (No. 94-V, art. 12) requires personal data of Kazakhstan citizens to be stored in Kazakhstan. Some of it is still processed outside Kazakhstan: page content and screenshots go to the AI model that runs your assistant, and product analytics go to PostHog (EU). Plank has not yet completed a legal review of how that law applies to this feature, and does not claim that it complies. If your organisation must keep personal data inside Kazakhstan, do not use this feature on pages that show personal data until that review is done.

Files you download

When the assistant downloads a file by clicking a site's Download button, the file is saved to your Plank workspace and also lands in your browser's usual Downloads folder, like any download.

Stopping and removing it

• Stop in the extension's pop-up (click the Plank icon) or on the task in Plank ends what the assistant is doing in your browser. Your tabs stay open.
• Allow Plank to work in this browser in the pop-up switches it off completely until you switch it back on.
• Remove in Plank's Settings → Browser sessions → Your browsers disconnects that browser at once. Uninstalling the extension deletes its key and your block list; the browser then shows as offline in Plank until you remove it there too.

Known limits

We would rather you hear these from us:

• To read and operate pages, the extension has to let Plank run page scripts in the tabs it works in. If Plank's servers were ever compromised, an attacker could use that to read the parts of those sites' data that pages themselves can read (not your saved passwords, and not the cookies sites protect from page scripts), and to click without the approval window. The protections above — only its own tabs, the block list, Stop — still apply.
• If you open a link from a Plank tab yourself (Ctrl-click or middle-click) within about two seconds of one of the assistant's actions, the new tab can be taken over as if the assistant opened it. It will be in the Plank group.
• In an organisation whose Chrome is managed by an administrator, some Chrome policies stop the extension from working at all. It then says so in its pop-up.

For your IT or security team

The extension is published in the Chrome Web Store and updates through it. Administrators can force-install it with Chrome's ExtensionSettings policy; do not set runtime_blocked_hosts for it — since Chrome 155 any entry there disables the debugger for every site. Contact support@plank.md for the policy snippet, for version pinning, or with a security report.

The extension uses the data described here only to carry out the tasks you give your Plank assistant. It does not sell data, does not use it for advertising, and does not use it to decide creditworthiness or lending, in line with the Chrome Web Store's Limited Use policy. Plank's full privacy policy also applies.