Decide what you are allowed to share, reduce it to the minimum needed, and verify the rules for the exact service and account you use.
An AI assistant can make a document easier to understand, but the document may contain information you should not send to that service. The privacy decision comes before the prompt. It depends on the material, your authority to share it, and the precise service and account involved. “I use AI” tells you very little about those conditions. A personal chatbot account, an employer-approved system and an application connected to other services can have different arrangements. This guide offers a repeatable decision process rather than a list of vendors labelled universally safe or unsafe.
First ask whether the information is yours to share
A file on your laptop is not necessarily yours to disclose. It may include customer details, another person’s messages, confidential employer material or information covered by a contract. For work, start with the organisation’s policy and its approved tools. If the permitted route is unclear, clarify it before uploading the file.
In its March 2023 discussion of language-model security, the UK National Cyber Security Centre emphasised understanding terms and privacy arrangements before sensitive use. Specific services have changed since then; the lasting principle is to examine the actual arrangement instead of treating a chatbot conversation as inherently private.
Share the minimum that solves the problem
Consider a hypothetical request to improve a payment reminder. The assistant may need the tone, deadline and general situation. It probably does not need a full customer record, bank details or an entire conversation history. Replace unnecessary details with placeholders and work on a short excerpt.
Removing a name does not automatically make a document anonymous. A rare job title, a specific event and a precise location may still identify someone when combined. When the details are essential and sensitive, use the approved environment rather than trying to improvise a guarantee of anonymity.
The UK Information Commissioner’s Office explains that appropriate security measures depend on the risks and context of processing. That supports a question-by-question approach, rather than one rule for every AI workflow.
Check the exact account and workflow
AI Affect suggests recording answers to these questions before recurring or sensitive use. Consult the provider’s current documentation and, at work, the responsible person or team.
- Use of submitted content: What does the provider say about using prompts and files for service improvement or model training under this plan?
- Retention and deletion: How long is content kept, which deletion controls exist, and what exceptions are described?
- Access: Which administrators, collaborators or service providers may have access under the arrangement?
- Connected services: Are you sending information onward through integrations, shared links or external tools?
- Purpose: Is this service approved for this particular type of material and task?
Training, storage and sharing are separate questions
A statement about training use does not answer every privacy question. Storage, account access and transfers to connected tools require their own checks. Similarly, deleting a visible chat and controlling every downstream copy are different objectives; inspect what the service actually promises.
The ICO’s analysis of individual rights in generative AI considers personal information across training, prompts and outputs. Its UK regulatory context should not be assumed to describe identical rights in every country. For individuals, it is a reminder to find the relevant privacy contact and request process for the service used.
Make the decision a repeatable habit
Before sending, pause for a short review: permission, minimum necessary detail, approved account, understood controls. After receiving the answer, check that the output does not reproduce details you should not forward. The assistant’s response may become another document that needs careful handling.
This process cannot eliminate every risk. It makes the choice explicit and easier to repeat. The goal is useful assistance with a deliberate boundary around the information that makes the assistance possible.