AI privacy: what to share, connect, and keep private

Follow the information

A prompt can contain your own information, another person's information, or confidential business material. An uploaded file may include hidden sheets, comments, or details unrelated to the task. A connected application may provide a much larger collection than the document you intended to discuss.

Start by asking what the assistant actually needs. To practice rewriting a bill inquiry, fictional names and amounts may be enough. To compare a real document, supply only the relevant portion when possible. Changing a person's name does not necessarily make a detailed account anonymous if the other facts identify them.

Separate the controls

History retention, model-training choices, memory features, sharing, and connector permissions are different controls. Turning off one does not necessarily turn off the others. Personal, business, and school accounts may have different terms. Read the current provider explanation instead of assuming all products work alike.

When linking an account, inspect the scope of access. Does the assistant need to read one document, or can it search an entire drive? Can it only draft a message, or can it send one? Remove connections you no longer need. Keep a record of where you granted significant access.

Check what “local” means

Running a model on your own device can reduce the need to send content to a provider, but an application may still offer cloud models, web search, or integrations. Ollama, for example, documents both local and cloud behavior and provides a local-only setting. That distinction illustrates why the selected configuration matters. Ollama: FAQ and local-only operation

A local file can also be synchronized by backup software or shared through another application. Think about the whole workflow rather than treating a single label as a privacy guarantee.

Use a short preflight review

Before uploading, check whether the material includes passwords, verification codes, account numbers, private correspondence, or other people's records. Before sharing a result, inspect it for information copied from the inputs. Before enabling an action, check the destination and the specific permission being used.

Help me identify unnecessary sensitive details in this fictional example. Suggest a minimized version that still supports the task. Explain what information you would need and why; do not ask for passwords, access codes, or unrelated records.

For a business, follow its data-handling policy and ask the responsible person when a use is unclear. Keep important information in a format you can export and understand independently of the assistant. Convenience is valuable, but you should still know where your information goes and how to withdraw access.