How can you protect your privacy when using AI?

In this guide, you will learn what is safe to share with AI, how your conversations may be used, and the practical steps that keep your private information private.

Here is the short answer. Treat a chat with an AI tool a little like talking in a busy cafe: fine for most things, but not the place to read out your bank details. Avoid pasting in passwords, financial information, medical records, or anything about other people that they would not want shared. Check your tool’s privacy settings, and for genuinely sensitive work, consider AI that runs on your own device.

What is safe to share, and what is not

Most of what you do with AI is completely fine. Drafting an email, planning a trip, or explaining a tricky idea involves nothing private, so share away.

The care comes with personal and confidential details. As a rule of thumb, do not put anything into a prompt, the instructions you type in, that you would not want a stranger to read. That means no passwords or logins, no full card or account numbers, no passport or national insurance details, and no confidential work documents.

Be thoughtful about other people too. It is easy to paste in a message from a friend or a colleague’s notes without considering that their information is now part of the conversation as well.

How your chats may be used

To understand why this matters, it helps to know what happens to what you type. The AI you are using learned from vast amounts of text, known as its training data, and some companies may use conversations to help improve future versions of their tools.

That does not mean a person is reading over your shoulder, and reputable companies have strong protections in place. It does mean your words may not vanish the moment you close the window. Knowing that is enough to shape a sensible boundary around the sensitive things.

Settings worth checking

The good news is that you are often in control, and the settings take only a minute to find. Most major tools now let you decide how your data is handled.

Look in your account settings for an option about training or model improvement, which you can usually turn off if you would rather your chats were not used that way. Many tools also offer a way to clear your history, and some have a temporary or private chat mode that does not save the conversation at all. It is worth spending five minutes setting these to suit you when you first sign up.

When to keep it on your own device

For the most sensitive work, there is a reassuring option. Some AI can run entirely on your own computer or phone, so nothing you type ever leaves the device. This is called local AI.

Because the conversation never travels to a company’s servers, it is a strong choice for confidential documents, personal journalling, or anything you would prefer stayed truly private. It usually takes a little more setting up and a reasonably capable device, but for privacy it is hard to beat.

Try it yourself

A good habit is to redact before you paste. If you want AI’s help with, say, a confusing official letter, remove the identifying details first and replace them with placeholders.

I've received an official letter and I don't fully understand what it's
asking me to do. Please explain it in plain English and list any actions
I need to take. I've replaced my personal details with [NAME], [ADDRESS],
and [REFERENCE NUMBER].

[paste the letter text with details removed]

You still get all the help, without handing over anything private. Our solution on how to understand a confusing letter walks through this in more detail.

A gentle correction

A common worry is that using AI at all means giving up your privacy, so people either overshare without thinking or avoid these tools entirely. Neither is necessary. With a couple of simple habits, checking your settings once and keeping the truly sensitive things out of the chat, you get the full benefit of AI while keeping your private life your own.

Next steps

Protecting your information is one half of using AI wisely. The other is knowing when to trust its answers. Our guide on fact-checking AI answers shows you a simple routine for that.