Artificial Intelligence has now become an integral part of many individuals everyday life. People are using AI models like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. Since these models have increasingly been giving very human like responses. AI assistants are used for meaningful conversations, therapy style conversations and other information seeking purposes. However these type of conversations often involves people oversharing information. Importantly sharing personal information raising concerns about data risks.
Personal Data
Avoid telling the AI bot your name, your address, phone number, your first cousin’s name, etc. Anything about you can be exploited by who knows who to get into your private accounts, to impersonate you, and run scams.
Passwords
Sharing your user names and login details, like passwords, with your chatbot could land you in even worse trouble than sharing your name.
You can use a password manager to help you remember your passwords or try memory techniques.
Financial details
Here is one of the worst things you can share with your ChatGPT: your bank and financial details. Account numbers, credit card and debit card details, how much your wallet has etc.
Your work and company data
There have been many examples of private company data being leaked after employees used ChatGPT at work. Your company’s data is not really yours. Many companies have warned and banned ChatGPT for employees and departments. Sharing such data, having it get leaked, will land you and your job in trouble.
Therapeutic Uses
Many may feel like talking to a bot is more cost-effective and easier than getting a therapist’s appointment or calling up a friend or your mom. However, your personal secrets will not be so secret anymore when they resurface after some time. AI is no more confidential than real people.
Medical Advice
Information related to your health is highly sensitive. You don’t want anyone accessing them without your consent. Giving your diagnosis away, medication you take, and other data to ChatGPT is equal to telling the world.
Legal Advice
AI chatbots cannot replace your lawyer or solve your legal disputes. So, try refraining from asking for help because doing so could harm your legal standing if the information you provided is ever exposed.
Creative work and IP
Sharing your original writings with a chatbot is a bad idea because your work might be used to train their large Language models. Several writers have been caught up in legal cases after they realised that chatbots were being trained on their copyrighted material.
Sensitive Images and explicit content
Your ID, passports, licenses and private photos all could be misused if you share them with an AI chatbot. Even if you delete it, the traces would remain. Keep all of that documentation in secure files. This also goes for explicit material and sexual content. While offensive content is flagged and blocked by AI, the traces could remain in the system’s logs. Just avoid risking it.
Any sensitive data you do not want the world to know
Anything you share with the AI bot is at risk of being exposed, and yes, this includes your regular chats. There have been instances where ChatGPT users reported that they were seeing chats that other users had with the bot.
