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What Information Should You Avoid Sharing With AI Chatbots?

Keep access secrets, sensitive personal records, and confidential work information out of general-purpose chatbot prompts unless the specific tool and account are approved for that data.
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Keep passwords, verification codes, government ID numbers, sensitive health or financial records, intimate details, and confidential work or client information out of general-purpose AI chatbot prompts unless you have confirmed that the specific service, account, and use are approved for that data. A practical rule from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is: “Avoid sharing sensitive or confidential information with AI models – if you wouldn’t post it on social media, don’t share it with AI.” That is a useful caution, not a technical description of how every provider handles data.

Information to keep out of chatbot prompts

Passwords, codes, and other access secrets

Do not paste passwords, passkeys, one-time verification codes, recovery codes, private keys, API keys, or answers to authentication questions into a prompt or uploaded file. A chatbot does not need your login secret to explain a general account problem. Never give a chatbot a password or one-time code so it can “log in for you”; if a service unexpectedly asks for one, stop and verify the request through a channel you already trust.

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Identity, health, financial, and intimate records

Keep government ID numbers, bank or card details, tax documents, medical records, insurance claims, private messages, and sexual or relationship material private unless you have verified the service is appropriate for that use. Precise home or travel details can also make you easier to identify or locate. These are practical examples of sensitive information; their legal classification varies by jurisdiction and context.

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Confidential work, client, student, or patient material

Do not put customer lists, case files, student or patient records, proprietary documents, internal plans, nonpublic financial information, or restricted source code into a public chatbot unless your organization has specifically approved that tool and configuration for the information. CISA advises against sharing company data. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), for example, bars its personnel and contractors from entering personally identifiable information, protected health information, and specified sensitive agency information into publicly accessible tools. That is CMS policy, not a universal rule for every employer.

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Why chatbot prompts deserve care

A prompt or upload may be processed as user content. Depending on the provider, account, settings, and applicable agreement, handling can involve storage, safety review, support, or model improvement. OpenAI’s consumer guidance says a limited set of authorized personnel and service providers may access content for specified purposes, and advises users not to enter sensitive information they would not want reviewed or used. That describes OpenAI’s guidance, not every AI provider’s practices.

OpenAI says turning off model improvement prevents new conversations on personal accounts from being used to train models, but the conversations may still appear in chat history. The available controls can differ by plan, account, and managed workspace. A training opt-out is therefore not the same thing as a promise that a conversation is confidential or never retained.

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There is also a documented example of risk involving a third-party chatbot component: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 2023 report recounts the 2018 Ticketmaster UK incident, which affected 9.4 million data subjects and involved 60,000 payment-card details. Those figures describe that incident only; they do not measure the general likelihood of a chatbot breach. The report focuses on consumer finance, and there is no representative cross-provider rate established here for how often users expose sensitive information or how likely a particular prompt is to be retained, reviewed, or breached.

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How to get help while sharing less

  1. Use placeholders. Replace names, email addresses, full account numbers, exact dates, and locations with neutral labels such as “[customer]” or “account ending in [last four].” Remove distinctive combinations of details too; redaction reduces exposure but does not guarantee that someone cannot be identified.
  2. Share only the minimum excerpt. Paste the relevant lines rather than an entire document. Before uploading an edited file, check it for names, addresses, signatures, barcodes, metadata, and embedded credentials or other secrets.
  3. Check the account and tool before sharing. Review the provider’s privacy, retention, and deletion information, and check whether the interaction involves uploads, connected apps, voice, or memory. Confirm whether you are using a personal account or an organization-managed workspace.
  4. Follow workplace rules. For restricted business, school, healthcare, or client information, use only a tool and workspace your organization has authorized for that information class. Organization-specific policy may be stricter than a provider’s consumer settings.
  5. Understand what a setting changes. Check whether model-improvement controls apply to your account and what they do—and do not—change about history, retention, or other processing. Do not treat an opt-out as a confidentiality guarantee.

If you already shared sensitive information

If an access secret was exposed, follow the service’s or your organization’s incident guidance and change or revoke the credential where appropriate. If the material was work-related, report it through your workplace’s incident process. For other sensitive content, use the provider’s deletion or privacy-request controls if available, while recognizing that the exact options and effects vary by service. No single remedy applies to every chatbot.

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What to check before trusting a chatbot with sensitive data

Compare the specific service and account setup rather than assuming all chatbots work alike. Check whether content is used for model improvement by default, who may access it and why, how long it is retained, what deletion or export controls exist, whether the account is managed by an organization, and how uploads, connected apps, voice, and memory are handled. Also consider the relevant contract, region, and workplace or regulatory rules.

This is general safety guidance, not jurisdiction-specific legal advice. Follow the requirements that apply to your employer, school, healthcare provider, or other organization.

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