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MCP servers: Lure of sharing your data with AI, and a likely security nightmare
After generative AI, large language models, multi-modal intelligence, artificial general intelligence, and agentic AI, the artificial intelligence (AI) space is beginning to write another chapter. The phraseology we must wrap our heads around, and you’ll increasingly hear about this, is MCP, or Model Context Protocol. It is supposed to solve an integration bottleneck, one that would allow AI systems to interact with external data sources and tools. But is this insulated against security risks, while handling personal data?
It may have gone under the radar, but AI company Anthropic first mooted the idea of a singular connection language for AI assistants with other apps and systems users access, late last year — dubbed the “USB-C for AI”. Claude Sonnet 3.5 is their first model, adept at building MCP implementations for connecting AI with datasets, as a user may want to.
Indian fintech Zerodha launched an MCP integration with Anthropic’s Claude. Among the things it can do is curate portfolio insights, plan trades, backtest investment strategies, and generate personal finance dashboards. For users who aren’t proficient with the workings of the stock market, these insights may prove useful.
“MCPs are a new way for AI systems to interact with real-world services like trading accounts,” says Nithin Kamath, Founder and CEO of Zerodha, pointing out all the functionality is free to access.
Globally, companies are rushing to build MCP integrations, and there’s a core rationale for this sudden momentum. “AI agents and assistants have become indispensable creative partners, yet current workflows require users to manually add context or references, creating complexity,” explains Anwar Haneef, GM and Head of Ecosystem at Canva.
11Labs, which has built the 11ai personal voice assistant, has bolted on MCP connections with platforms including Perplexity and Slack. Autonomous coding agent Cline too can combine MCP servers from Perplexity and others, to create research workflows.
Amazon Web Services or AWS, in a technical document, explains MCP is an open standard that creates a universal language for AI systems to communicate with external data sources, tools, and services. Conceptually, MCP functions as a universal translator, enabling seamless dialogue between language models and the diverse systems, they say.
Also Read: Apple Music at 10, India’s 5G trajectory, Canva’s AI tools, and Adobe’s camera
For users, this may open up a scenario where AI tools may be able to connect with different platforms, and thereby, a single window workflow approach, instead of manually copying data between applications or switching between multiple tools to complete tasks.
Take for example Canva, which becomes the first company to launch its deep research connector with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and thereby give users access to designs and content created in Canva via their ChatGPT conversations. This will include Canva Docs and presentations as well.
The advantage? Summarising reports or documents, asking AI to analyse data, and for a more contextual conversation. AI will be able to use these tools to create content depending on what a user asks. “This is a major step in our vision to make the complex simple and build an all-in-one AI workflow that’s secure and accessible to all,” adds Haneef.
OpenAI announced MCP support earlier, says popular remote MCP servers include Cloudflare, HubSpot, Intercom, PayPal, Plaid, Shopify, Stripe, and Twilio, all encompassing various consumer and enterprise focused domains.
Microsoft has made substantial investments in MCP infrastructure, integrating the protocol with Azure OpenAI Services to allow GPT models to interact with external services and fetch live data. The company has released multiple MCP servers.
Anthropic, though an early mover, has had to change the approach to offering MCP to developers. The result, released a few days ago, are the new Desktop Extensions, to simplify MCP installations. “We kept hearing the same feedback: installation was too complex. Users needed developer tools, had to manually edit configuration files, and often got stuck on dependency issues,” the company says, in a statement.
Developers will need help with the integration. AWS has released their open-source AWS Serverless MCP Server, a tool that combines AI assistance with streamlined development, to help developers build modern applications.
Unchartered territory?
Risks, particularly with how a user’s data is being shared between two distinct digital entities, are something tech companies must remain cognisant of. As Kailash Nadh, Zerodha’s Chief Technology Officer explains, “Strictly from a user perspective, it feels liberating to be able to access services outside of their walled gardens and bloated UIs riddled with dark patterns. It moves a considerable amount of control from service providers to users, but at the same time, it concentrates decision-making and mediation in the hands of AI blackboxes.”
He is yet to find an answer to what happens in case of errors and failures with real-world implications, tracing accountability and the inevitable regulatory questions. “Whether the long-term implications of MCP’s viral, cross-cutting spread will be net positive or not, is unclear to me,” he adds.
AI security expert Simon Wilson is worried about users going overboard in “mixing and matching MCP Servers”. Particularly concerning is the attack method, called prompt injection.
“Any time you combine access to private data, exposure to untrusted content and the ability to externally communicate an attacker can trick the system into stealing your data,” he explains, in a Mastodon post. He points to the core of this approach, labelling it a “lethal trifecta” — access to private data, exposure to untrusted content and an ability to communicate externally.
“Be careful with which custom MCP servers you add to your ChatGPT workspace. Currently, we only support deep research with custom MCP servers in ChatGPT, meaning the only tools intended to be available within the remote MCP servers are search and document retrieval. However, risks still apply even with this narrow scope,” OpenAI warns developers, in a technical note.
Microsoft too has noted specific risks around misconfigured authorisation logic in MCP servers leading to sensitive data exposure and authentication tokens being stolen, which can then be used to impersonate and access resources inappropriately.
BBC Scotland News
BBCEdinburgh Airport has lifted the 100ml rule for liquids being carried in hand luggage.
It will now be possible to take containers of up to two litres through security, and they will not need to be removed from bags.
The change comes after an extra two lanes and eight scanners costing £24m were installed at the international hub.
Edinburgh Airport is the first airport in Scotland to lift the rule. Birmingham airport has also lifted the rule.
There will be no limit on the number of containers that passengers can carry in their hand luggage, but metal water bottles will need to be emptied beforehand.
Items such as bottles of wine or large water bottles can also be taken on in cabin bags.
Smiths DetectionPassengers using the airport are also able to keep large electricals, such as iPads, tablets and laptops, in their hand luggage.
Gordon Dewar, chief executive of Edinburgh Airport, said it would allow passengers to move through security more easily than they currently do.
But he said passengers should check security rules at their return destination as other airports may not have moved away from the 100ml limit.
“A whole generation of travellers have only known the 100ml rule to be the case, so it really is a momentous day as we become the first airport in Scotland to lift the rule since it was introduced in 2006,” he said.
“The change allows more flexibility for passengers to take liquids through security, all while maintaining and improving our high safety levels through the use of 3D technology.”
What are the rules at Scotland’s airports?
Passengers at Glasgow and Aberdeen airports can leave liquids and electronics items, such as laptops and tablets, in cabin bags while going through security.
Liquids, which include creams, gels, pastes, sprays and aerosols, can be taken through in containers of up to 100ml in volume without using a plastic bag.
There is no limit on how many 100ml items passengers can bring.
At Inverness and Glasgow Prestwick airports, liquids, laptops and other electronic devices, including hairdryers, cameras and straighteners, must be removed from cabin bags and placed in a tray.
Liquids in a container of 100ml or less should be placed in a sealed 20cm x 20cm, one litre plastic bag.
Each passenger can only take one of these bags.
For Gartner vice president analyst DD Mishra, WNS’s investments in intelligent automation, analytics, and agentic solutions including its TRAC analytics suite and Malkom knowledge management platform will complement Capgemini’s existing technology and consulting strengths.
Sharath Srinivasamurthy, research vice president at IDC, pointed to the acquisitions WNS has itself made in recent months, including Kipi.ai, Smart Cube, and OptiBuy to enhance its data, analytics, and procurement stack and extend its proficiency in business process operations, said.
However, Rajesh Ranjan, managing partner at Everest Group, views the WNS acquisition as more of a strategic play rather than being focused on garnering more agentic tools or capabilities.
Locafy’s AI Search Platform Powers Visibility Across Organic and AI Search
New Product Lineup Tailored to Local, National, and e-Commerce Businesses
AI-Powered Tools Designed to Automate Engagement and Accelerate Online Presence
PERTH, Australia, July 07, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Locafy Limited (NASDAQ: LCFY, “Locafy”), a globally recognized leader in location-based digital marketing, today unveiled its FY26 suite of AI-powered SEO products. These solutions, now commercially available following successful market testing, are designed to deliver measurable improvements across organic, AI, and marketplace search results.
Locafy initially outlined its AI-powered publishing roadmap in December 2024, promising to streamline content production and improve cost-effective online visibility for businesses.
“We are excited to announce that we’ve delivered on that promise,” said Gavin Burnett, CEO of Locafy.
All of Locafy’s publishing and SEO products are designed to drive visibility in search engines and, increasingly, AI-driven search tools and marketplaces. Recent research shows these optimizations extend across both traditional and emerging search platforms.
“We’ve evolved our technology to influence not only search engine rankings but also AI search results,” said Burnett. “Our platform helps position our clients’ websites as authoritative sources for high-value keywords, across local, national, and e-commerce campaigns.”
Burnett added, “We’ve also automated the creation of AI-search-ready landing pages, opening up a greenfield opportunity for scaled monetization. Our U.S. directory includes more than 9.68 million direct business listings, and our citation management partners publish more than 28 million business listings across our directories. Each of these represents either a direct sales opportunity or a chance to collaborate with partners using the data we already publish on their behalf.”
Locafy is focused on three primary solution categories:
- Online Business Listings
- Local SEO
- AI-powered engagement tools
Online Business Listings
Locafy continues to assert that online business listings form the cornerstone of successful Local SEO. These listings supply structured data that fuels automated SEO product generation. Locafy currently publishes more than 9.5 million listings in the U.S. and remains focused on partnerships with citation management firms and multi-location businesses. It is also exploring acquisitions of databases, directories, and citation management assets.
The Total Addressable Market (TAM) for the Local SEO solution in their key target markets of USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK is more than 40 million businesses.
“We currently host more than 63 million business listings worldwide, of which more than 40 million are in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the UK,” said Burnett. “However, our direct sales opportunity is more than 11.4 million, plus we have more than 28 million listings that we publish on behalf of partners, who can now connect to our Platform to automate the production of our Local SEO products for their clients.”
| Country | Partner Added* | Claimed* |
| Australia | 2,145,707 | 652,351 |
| Canada | 1,533,479 | 289,274 |
| United Kingdom | 3,458,205 | 802,003 |
| United States of America | 33,076,154 | 9,684,329 |
| TOTAL | 40,213,545 | 11,427,957 |
Local SEO
The flagship solution, Localizer, integrates listing syndication, AI-search optimization, review management, and Google Map Pack enhancement.
“We haven’t seen another product that combines these capabilities—at a price point starting around
AI-powered Engagement Tools
In addition to improving search visibility, Locafy has developed a scalable, cost-effective AI Voice Concierge that can serve as a virtual receptionist, product expert, or customer service agent.
“This is our first step into AI-enabled customer engagement,” said Burnett. “Our Voice Concierge acts like a digital team member—it can take bookings, provide answers, and interact 24/7. Just feed it your business documents and it learns. We record and transcribe every interaction, giving clients full transparency.
“This kind of capability once felt like science fiction, but it’s here now—and Locafy is helping businesses adapt and thrive in an AI-powered world.”
Over the past six months, Locafy has streamlined its product suite, automated key production processes, and validated product performance through live testing. With this foundation in place, the Company is poised for commercial growth in FY2026.
While the company still offers solutions for National SEO and e-Commerce, it believes the immediate opportunity afforded by its breakthroughs in AI Search represents a larger and more scalable revenue opportunity with far greater automation already in place.
About Locafy
Locafy (Nasdaq: LCFY, LCFYW) is a globally recognized software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology company specializing in local search engine marketing. Founded in 2009, Locafy’s mission is to revolutionize the US
Investor Relations Contact:
Matt Glover
Gateway Group, Inc.
(949) 574-3860
LCFY@gateway-grp.com
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