Security overview

Access management

API keys

Each Pinecone project has one or more API keys. In order to make calls to the Pinecone API, a user must provide a valid API key for the relevant Pinecone project. You can manage API key permissions in the Pinecone console. The available permission roles are as follows:

General permissions

Pinecone console
API

Role	Permissions
All	Permissions to read and write all project data.

Role	Permissions
`ProjectEditor`	Permissions to read and write all project data.
`ProjectViewer`	Permissions to read all project data.

Control plane permissions

Pinecone console
API

Role	Permissions
ReadWrite	Permissions to list, describe, create, delete, and configure indexes, backups, collections, and assistants.
ReadOnly	Permissions to list and describe indexes, backups, collections, and assistants.
None	No control plane permissions.

Role	Permissions
`ControlPlaneEditor`	Permissions to list, describe, create, delete, and configure indexes, backups, collections, and assistants.
`ControlPlaneViewer`	Permissions to list and describe indexes, backups, collections, and assistants.
None	No control plane permissions.

Data plane permissions

Pinecone console
API

Role	Permissions
ReadWrite	Indexes: Permissions to query, import, fetch, add, update, and delete index data. Pinecone Assistant: Permissions to add, list, view, and delete files; chat with an assistant, and evaluate responses. Pinecone Inference: Permissions to generate embeddings and rerank documents.
ReadOnly	Indexes: Permissions to query, fetch, list ID, and view stats. Pinecone Assistant: Permissions to list and view files, chat with an assistant, and evaluate responses. Pinecone Inference: Permissions to generate embeddings and rerank documents.
None	No data plane permissions.

Role	Permissions
`DataPlaneEditor`	Indexes: Permissions to query, import, fetch, add, update, and delete index data. Pinecone Assistant: Permissions to add, list, view, and delete files; chat with an assistant, and evaluate responses. Pinecone Inference: Permissions to generate embeddings and rerank documents.
`DataPlaneViewer`	Indexes: Permissions to query, fetch, list ID, and view stats. Pinecone Assistant: Permissions to list and view files, chat with an assistant, and evaluate responses. Pinecone Inference: Permissions to generate embeddings and rerank documents.
None	No data plane permissions.

Organization single sign-on (SSO)

SSO allows organizations to manage their teams’ access to Pinecone through their identity management solution. Once your integration is configured, you can require that users from your domain sign in through SSO, and you can specify a default role for teammates when they sign up. SSO is available on Standard and Enterprise plans. For more information, see configure single sign on.

Role-based access controls (RBAC)

Pinecone uses role-based access controls (RBAC) to manage access to resources. Service accounts, API keys, and users are all principals. A principal’s access is determined by the roles assigned to it. Roles are assigned to a principal for a resource, either a project or an organization. The roles available to be assigned depend on the type of principal and resource.

Service account roles

A service account can be assigned roles for the organization it belongs to, and any projects within that organization. For more information, see Organization roles and Project roles.

API key roles

An API key can only be assigned permissions for the projects it belongs to. For more information, see API keys.

User roles

A user can be assigned roles for each organization they belong to, and any projects within that organization. For more information, see Organization roles and Project roles.

Compliance

To learn more about data privacy and compliance at Pinecone, visit the Pinecone Trust and Security Center.

Audit logs

To enable and manage audit logs, you must be an organization owner. This feature is available only on Enterprise plans.

Audit logs provide a detailed record of user and API actions that occur within Pinecone. Events are captured every 30 minutes and each log batch will be saved into its own file as a JSON blob, keyed by the time of the log to be written. Only logs since the integration was created and enabled will be saved. Audit log events adhere to a standard JSON schema and include the following fields:

JSON

{
    "id": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
    "organization_id": "AA1bbbbCCdd2EEEe3FF",
    "organization_name": "example-org",
    "client": {
        "userAgent": "rawUserAgent"
    },
    "actor": {
        "principal_id": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
        "principal_name": "example@pinecone.io",
        "principal_type": "user", // user, api_key, service_account
        "display_name": "Example Person" // Only in case of user
    },
	"event": {
        "time": "2024-10-21T20:51:53.697Z",
        "action": "create",
        "resource_type": "index",
        "resource_id": "uuid",
        "resource_name": "docs-example",
        "outcome": {
            "result": "success",
            "reason": "", // Only displays for "result": "failure"
            "error_code": "", // Only displays for "result": "failure"
        },
        "parameters": { // Varies based on event
        }
	}
}

The following events are captured in the audit logs:

Organization events
Project events
Index events
User and API key events
Security and governance events

Organization events

Action	Query parameters
Rename org	`event.action: update`, `event.resource_type: organization`, `event.resource_id: NEW_ORG_NAME`
Delete org	`event.action: delete`, `event.resource_type: organization`, `event.resource_id: DELETED_ORG_NAME`
Create org member	`event.action: create`, `event.resource_type: user`, `event.resource_id: [ARRAY_OF_USER_EMAILS]`
Update org member	`event.action: update`, `event.resource_type: user`, `event.resource_id: { user: USER_EMAIL, role: NEW_ROLE }`
Delete org member	`event.action: delete`, `event.resource_type: user`, `event.resource_id: USER_EMAIL`

Project events

Action	Query parameters
Create project	`event.action: create`, `event.resource_type: project`, `event.resouce_id: PROJ_NAME`
Update project	`event.action: update`, `event.resource_type: project`, `event.resource_id: PROJECT_NAME`
Delete project	`event.action: delete`, `event.resource_type: project`, `event.resource_id: PROJECT_NAME`
Invite project member	`event.action: create`, `event.resource_type: user`, `event.resource_id: [ARRAY_OF_USER_EMAILS]`
Update project member role	`event.action: update`, `event.resource_type: user`, `event.resource_id: { user: USER_EMAIL, role: NEW_ROLE }`
Delete project member	`event.action: delete`, `event.resource_type: user`, `event.resource_id: { user: USER_EMAIL, project: PROJ_NAME }`

Index events

Action	Query parameters
Create index	`event.action: create`, `event.resource_type: index`, `event.resouce_id: INDEX_NAME`
Update index	`event.action: update`, `event.resource_type: index`, `event.resource_id: INDEX_NAME`
Delete index	`event.action: delete`, `event.resource_type: index`, `event.resource_id: INDEX_NAME`
Create backup	`event.action: create`, `event.resource_type: backup`, `event.resource_id: BACKUP_NAME`
Delete backup	`event.action: delete`, `event.resource_type: backup`, `event.resource_id: BACKUP_NAME`

User and API key events

Action	Query parameters
User login	`event.action: login`, `event.resource_type: user`, `event.resouce_id: USERNAME`
Create API key	`event.action: create`, `event.resource_type: api-key`, `event.resource_id: API_KEY_ID`
Delete API key	`event.action: delete`, `event.resource_type: api-key`, `event.resource_id: API_KEY_ID`

Security and governance events

Action	Query parameters
Create Private Endpoint	`event.action: create`, `event.resource_type: private-endpoints`, `event.resource_id: PRIVATE_ENDPOINT_ID`
Delete Private Endpoint	`event.action: delete`, `event.resource_type: private-endpoints`, `event.resource_id: PRIVATE_ENDPOINT_ID`

Data protection

Customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK)

Data within a Pinecone project can be encrypted using customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK). This allows you to encrypt your data using keys that you manage in your cloud provider’s key management system (KMS). Pinecone supports CMEK using Amazon Web Services (AWS) KMS. For Bring your own cloud (BYOC), you use KMS on infrastructure in your own account rather than this console CMEK integration.

Backup and recovery

This feature is available on Standard and Enterprise plans.

A backup is a static copy of your index that only consumes storage. It is a non-queryable representation of a set of records. You can create a backup of an index, and you can create a new index from a backup. This allows you to restore the index with the same or different configurations. For more information, see Understanding backups.

Encryption at rest

Pinecone encrypts stored data using the 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256) encryption algorithm.

Encryption in transit

Pinecone uses standard protocols to encrypt user data in transit. Clients open HTTPS or gRPC connections to the Pinecone API; the Pinecone API gateway uses gRPC connections to user deployments in the cloud. These HTTPS and gRPC connections use the TLS 1.2 protocol with 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256) encryption.

Diagram showing encryption protocols for user data in transit

Traffic is also encrypted in transit between the Pinecone backend and cloud infrastructure services, such as S3 and GCS. For more information, see Google Cloud Platform and AWS security documentation.

Network security

Private Endpoints

Use Private Endpoints to connect via AWS PrivateLink or Azure Private Link. This establishes private connectivity between your Pinecone serverless indexes and your cloud VPC/VNet while keeping traffic off the public internet.

Private Endpoints are additive to other Pinecone security features: data is also encrypted in transit, encrypted at rest, and an API key is required to authenticate.

Proxies

The following Pinecone SDKs support the use of proxies:

Get started

Index data

Search

Optimize

Manage data

Manage cost

Move to production

Admin

Operations

Using pods

Access management

API keys

General permissions

Control plane permissions

Data plane permissions

Organization single sign-on (SSO)

Role-based access controls (RBAC)

Service account roles

API key roles

User roles

Compliance

Audit logs

Organization events

Project events

Index events

User and API key events

Security and governance events

Data protection

Customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK)

Backup and recovery

Encryption at rest

Encryption in transit

Network security

Private Endpoints

Proxies

​Access management

​API keys

​General permissions

​Control plane permissions

​Data plane permissions

​Organization single sign-on (SSO)

​Role-based access controls (RBAC)

​Service account roles

​API key roles

​User roles

​Compliance

​Audit logs

​Organization events

​Project events

​Index events

​User and API key events

​Security and governance events

​Data protection

​Customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK)

​Backup and recovery

​Encryption at rest

​Encryption in transit

​Network security

​Private Endpoints

​Proxies

Access management

API keys

General permissions

Control plane permissions

Data plane permissions

Organization single sign-on (SSO)

Role-based access controls (RBAC)

Service account roles

API key roles

User roles

Compliance

Audit logs

Organization events

Project events

Index events

User and API key events

Security and governance events

Data protection

Customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK)

Backup and recovery

Encryption at rest

Encryption in transit

Network security

Private Endpoints

Proxies