What never goes in
You hold the client’s contract, the team’s salaries and the tenant’s personal data. The red list, the law in one paragraph, and the thirty-second anonymiser.
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Members are the people holding the client’s contract, the team’s salaries and the tenant’s personal data. A consumer AI account is a third-party service in another country. The question is not “is the AI safe” but “would I email this to a stranger”.
The red list
What never goes in
- NeverClient-confidential material under an NDA.
- NeverAnything your employer marks internal.
- NeverPersonal data: a name with anything attached to it - a salary, a health note, an ID number, an address, a performance opinion.
- NeverCredentials, passwords, access keys.
- NeverContract prices and unpublished financials.
- NeverAnything about a tender that is still open.
Not one of these goes into a consumer account. If your employer provides a tool under its own contract, that is a different question - ask them. This page is not legal advice.
The law, in one paragraph
Anonymise in thirty seconds
Names become roles
“The sponsor”, “vendor A”, “the site engineer”. Most of the ten jobs work exactly as well with roles.
Amounts go, or get scaled
Delete the prices, or divide everything by the same number and tell it so.
Identifiers go
ID numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, account numbers.
The header goes
The client’s logo, the document classification, the project code that a search would find.
Why the free tier is not for work
A personal free account is where you learn the tool. It is not where work material goes, for three practical reasons and one contractual one. Practical: a free tier gives you less room for what you put in front of it - the sixty-page document is exactly what it is tight on; it gives you fewer or no project workspaces, so nothing persists properly; and it gives you a smaller allowance of use before it stops for the day. Contractual: nothing about it is under an agreement with your employer. Employer first: if the company provides an enterprise ChatGPT, a Claude or Gemini business account, Microsoft Copilot, or an internal tool, that is the one for work material - it sits under the employer’s contract, not yours. If the company has a policy, it wins. If it has none, the red list above is the policy until it does. If there is no employer tool and the work needs one, a paid plan under an agreement is the floor - and the limits of what goes in still apply.
The two switches, again
ChatGPT: Settings, Data Controls, “Improve the model for everyone”, off. Claude: chats are not used for training by default unless you opt in; confirm your privacy settings. Temporary or incognito chats for one-offs. All three are on start here with the vendors’ own pages.
Shared links and screenshots are publications
A shared chat is a web page. A screenshot in a group chat is a copy you no longer control. Treat both like a post.
Before
The stakeholder register, with names and phone numbers, pasted into a browser tab to “make it into a nice table”.
After
The same table, names replaced by roles, in a project workspace with training off - or, for real client data, in the employer’s tool, or not at all.
Last checked by Petar Trajchevski. Product names and settings paths were walked through on that date; the concepts do not move. Report a change