Short answer: do not paste into a chatbot anything you could not publish or send to a stranger: passwords, identity documents, bank details, confidential company information and other people's data. When you need help with this kind of content, remove or swap the sensitive data first.
What helps before you start
- Knowing how the service handles conversations: whether it stores them, uses them for training and how to delete them.
- Having the privacy policy and your account settings at hand.
- Remembering that once sent, the data is already out of your direct control.
Checklist
- Passwords, codes and keys. Never. This includes verification codes, access keys and recovery phrases.
- Identification documents. Document numbers, photos of documents, passport data.
- Financial data. Card numbers, complete bank details, statements with personal information.
- Health information. Exams, diagnoses and identifiable medical records.
- Other people's data. Names, contacts, private messages and information about customers, colleagues or relatives, without authorization.
- Confidential work information. Strategies, contracts, internal source code, customer data and documents marked confidential.
- Trade secrets and intellectual property. If something is valuable and not protected, avoid sending it.
- Information under legal or contractual secrecy. If there is a confidentiality agreement, the chatbot is not covered by it.
- Address, routine and location. Combined, they can expose your safety.
How to still get help
- Anonymize. Replace names with "Person A", values with examples and dates with generic periods.
- Summarize the problem. Instead of pasting the document, describe the situation without the sensitive details.
- Use approved tools. If your company offers an AI tool with contractual guarantees, prefer it.
- Adjust settings. See whether there is an option to turn off history or the use of conversations for training.
- Consider a local model. For sensitive data, a solution that runs on your computer reduces exposure.
An example
Marcelo wanted help writing a reply to a customer. Instead of pasting the full email, with name, contract and amounts, he swapped the name for "Customer", removed the numbers and described the situation. He received a good draft and adjusted it afterwards, with the real data, outside the chatbot. This is an illustrative example.
Common mistakes
- Pasting "just an excerpt" without realizing what it contains.
- Thinking incognito mode solves it: it may not change what the service receives.
- Forgetting images and files: they carry data too.
- Using a personal account for work: mixing contexts increases risk.
Next step
Before pasting anything, ask: "if this text leaked, would it be a problem?". If so, anonymize it or do not send it.
