Knowledge
Transparency is central to us at Intric. When you upload a document to Knowledge, specific processes are in place to ensure your privacy and data sovereignty throughout the entire chain — from file upload to a searchable knowledge index.
The process from your file upload to an indexed, searchable document occurs through a secure interaction between the Intric platform (where your data is processed and stored) and the embedding model you have selected (e.g. Berget or OpenAI).
Step-by-step: How your data is handled
Section titled “Step-by-step: How your data is handled”All transfers between Intric and its sub-processors occur over secure, encrypted connections.
Step 1 — User uploads a file to Intric
Section titled “Step 1 — User uploads a file to Intric”The user uploads a document (e.g. a PDF, DOCX, or text file) via Intric’s web interface or API.
Data sent to Intric’s server:
- The file’s complete binary content
- File name and metadata (size, file type)
The file is transferred over an encrypted connection (HTTPS) to Intric’s servers. No data is forwarded to external services at this stage.
Step 2 — Intric extracts and stores the document
Section titled “Step 2 — Intric extracts and stores the document”Intric extracts the text content from the file, stores the original securely, and prepares the content for indexing. All processing in this step happens internally on Intric’s servers.
What happens:
- Text content is extracted from the document (PDF, DOCX, etc.)
- The raw original file is stored in Intric’s object storage (S3) in Sweden
- Extracted text, metadata, and page structure are saved in Intric’s database (PostgreSQL)
- The text is split into smaller segments (chunks) to enable semantic search
Nothing leaves Intric’s server at this stage — all processing and storage happens internally on the platform.
Step 3 — Intric vectorizes chunk text (embedding)
Section titled “Step 3 — Intric vectorizes chunk text (embedding)”Intric sends the text of each chunk to the configured embedding model so it can be turned into vectors for semantic search, then receives the vectors back from the provider in the same logical step.
Data sent from Intric’s server to the provider:
- The text content of each chunk (plain document text, not metadata)
Data returned to Intric:
- Numeric vectors (embeddings) for each chunk, used to store and search the content in Knowledge
What happens at the provider: A numeric vector is generated from the chunk text. The model has no context about the user’s or organization’s identity.
The provider processes the request entirely in memory — nothing is written to persistent storage on the provider’s side.
Step 4 — Document is available in Knowledge
Section titled “Step 4 — Document is available in Knowledge”The document becomes searchable and can be used in your knowledge collections in Intric.
Data stored on Intric’s servers:
- Extracted full text and page structure
- Text chunks with associated embedding vectors
- File metadata (name, size, file type, timestamp)
The embedding vectors are stored together with the original chunk text in Intric’s database in Sweden, hosted by a Swedish sub-processor.
Data sharing and privacy
Section titled “Data sharing and privacy”To protect your and your organization’s privacy, we apply the principle of data minimization. This means the sub-processor only gets access to the content absolutely necessary to perform the task — no user identity ever leaves your infrastructure.
We have strict zero data retention clauses in all our contracts with language model sub-processors. This guarantees that content sent to the embedding model is not retained by the provider in persistent storage for that request, nor is the information used to train their AI models, subject to the terms of the applicable agreement.
In the table below, you can see exactly what data is sent to the sub-processor and what does not leave Intric’s servers.
| Sent to the embedding model | Not sent to the embedding model |
|---|---|
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Data retention and deletion
Section titled “Data retention and deletion”All file storage and indexing happens on Intric’s infrastructure in Sweden — no external service stores your documents, extracted text, or vectors.
When a document is deleted from Knowledge, all parts are removed — the original file, extracted text, chunks, and vectors. In the audit log, administrators can see when documents are uploaded and deleted, and by whom.