What not to share with ChatGPT

You can get useful help from ChatGPT without handing it the most private version of your life. Asking for help with a difficult email does not usually require the recipient’s full name or the entire conversation that led to it.

Keep passwords and other access credentials out of prompts. With personal documents, share only the information needed for the task and check whether you have permission to share it at all.

A privacy setting can change how a service handles information. It cannot make an unnecessary disclosure necessary.

Keep anything that unlocks an account out of the chat

Do not paste a password, recovery code or private key into an assistant. Someone who obtains a working credential may be able to use it without knowing anything else about you.

If you want help with an error message, remove the credential before sharing the text. A screenshot can contain the same secret as a copied command.

Use an obvious placeholder such as [API KEY REMOVED]. The assistant can still explain where a key belongs without seeing a working one.

If you have already shared an active credential, replace or revoke it through the service that issued it. Deleting the conversation is not a substitute. For account protection, the NCSC recommends passkeys where available.

Give the problem enough context, without sending the whole file

Suppose you want help challenging an unexpected charge. The assistant probably needs the service description and the relevant amount. It rarely needs your full bank statement.

You could ask the following.

Help me write a polite dispute email. A subscription renewed for £49 after I cancelled it on 12 October. Leave placeholders for my account details.

For a medical letter, you might ask for an explanation of one unfamiliar term rather than uploading your complete record. Keep enough surrounding text to preserve its meaning. Removing context can produce a misleading answer too.

A document containing other people’s information deserves the same care. Their names are not yours to give away simply because they appear in your inbox.

The ICO’s data protection principles include collecting and using only the personal information needed for a purpose. For a personal AI prompt, that is a useful habit even when you are not making a legal assessment.

Removing a name does not always hide an identity

Replacing someone’s name with “a colleague” can help, but an unusual job title and a precise description of an incident may still identify them.

Change details that do not affect the question. For help phrasing a performance conversation, the assistant may need to know that deadlines have been missed. It probably does not need the colleague’s distinctive medical history.

Do not change facts that the answer depends on. If the date determines a cancellation deadline, keep it or calculate the deadline yourself. Privacy editing should leave you with an accurate problem.

Check work material before sharing it

Having access to a document does not necessarily give you permission to upload it to another service.

Use the AI account your organisation has approved for that type of work. If the rule is unclear, ask the person responsible for the information before uploading it. A paid personal account does not automatically satisfy your employer’s requirements.

Professional duties may be stricter. The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s AI guidance explains confidentiality responsibilities for legal professionals. Those rules are sector specific, but the underlying problem is familiar. An assistant cannot authorise you to share someone else’s confidential information.

Files may also contain information beyond the page you are looking at. Comments and tracked changes can survive in a working document. Microsoft’s Document Inspector guidance explains what its tools can find and their limitations.

Reuse a small amount of context with AI Passport

Repeating your background in every assistant can lead to sharing more than you intended.

AI Passport holds selected personal context that connected assistants can use with your permission. You could keep a writing preference there instead of uploading examples of private correspondence whenever you want an email drafted.

Ask your connected assistant the following.

Propose this preference for AI Passport. When drafting work emails, use British spelling and a calm, straightforward tone.

Review the proposal before approving it. Check that it describes the preference itself, without including the private email that prompted it.

A connected assistant needs the relevant permission to retrieve that context. Approving a memory and allowing an app to read it are separate decisions.

Passport’s access controls help you decide what context to reuse. Information delivered to another assistant is still subject to that service’s handling.

Make a smaller prompt your starting point

Before sending, ask whether each private detail could change the answer.

If it could not, leave it out. If it could, decide whether the task belongs in that service before sharing it. You can always add relevant context later. You cannot make an already delivered detail unread.