Quick check
Guess first, no penalty. Which of these is safe to paste into a free public AI chat tool (one you signed up for yourself)?
Assistants hold more private information than almost anyone: the calendar, the inbox, board papers, salary talks, health appointments and family plans. A public AI tool sits outside your company's systems. Once you paste something in, you can't take it back.
Names count too. Under UK GDPR, personal data means "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person". Other countries have their own rules, and your company's policy decides which tools may see what.
Watch the automatic helpers too. A note-taking bot set to join every meeting will join the confidential one unless someone turns it off.
A worked example
Before and after
Switch between the risky request and the safe one.
Risky
Find two free hours in this calendar for a meeting with the CFO. [pastes Dana's full calendar, including a hospital appointment and a salary review]
The safe version gives the tool only the busy times it needs. Who, where and why stay with you.
Your turn
Fill the gaps
Fill each gap to make the request safe.
Safe request
Find two free hours next week. Busy: . Use .
Try it
Your steps, about 2 minutes
- 1.Add a "never paste" line to your kit: calendars, board papers, HR, health, family. Next to it, list the AI tools your company has approved, and ask about any you're unsure of.2 min