Lesson 04 · 8 minutes
Know what not to share
Sort your information before it goes near an AI product, and send the least you can while still getting a useful result.
Why this matters
Convenient features make it easy to hand over sensitive information without noticing you crossed a line.
Controls differ by product, by plan and by organisation, so a familiar brand name is not the reassurance it feels like.
The practical bit
Before you paste or upload, ask who the information identifies, who owns it, what policy or agreement covers it, and what harm could follow if it leaked. Then use the smallest amount that still lets you do the task.
Strip out names and any detail you do not need, stay inside the tools your organisation has approved, or build an invented example instead. If the privacy, retention or training terms are unclear, whether your data is stored and whether it is used to improve the AI, stop and confirm them rather than guessing.
Watch the word memory too. Products use it for at least three different things: the current chat, the wider context the model can see, and information saved for later, such as stored memories, past chats it can reference, indexed project files and connected apps. A single switch marked off may not cover all of them, so check what each setting actually turns off.
What it looks like
Test a staff-letter workflow with invented names and situations first. Only once it works do you go near real employee information, and then only through your organisation's approved tools and policy.
Ask for help understanding how a medical form is structured without uploading the filled-in version, and treat the explanation as background rather than as medical advice.
Removing a person's name but leaving in the role, dates, location or case details that still point straight to them.
Use your judgement
Try it now
- Choose a document or task you might give an AI product.
- Mark personal, confidential, commercially sensitive and unnecessary details.
- Create a reduced or synthetic version that can still test the workflow.
Use this in a real situation
Practise with a permitted fileWork through a file example without handing over sensitive material.Open the practical →Keep this
Use the least sensitive information that can still give you a meaningful test.