Free lesson · Knowledge · 5 min
Private, sensitive, or safe to paste?
Lesson 11 of 12 in AI at Work Foundations
The one idea
Before anything goes into an AI tool, ask one question: what kind of information is this? A quick classification habit protects you, your colleagues, and your customers — without making you afraid to use AI at all.
Three buckets
- Public — already out in the world: published content, marketing copy, public web pages. Safe to paste freely.
- Internal — not secret, but not for outsiders: routine plans, drafts, internal notes. Usually fine in approved work tools; use judgment.
- Confidential — would cause real harm if it leaked: customer personal data, financial records, legal matters, passwords and secrets, anything covered by an agreement. Treat with strict care and follow your organisation's rules.
Anonymise — but know its limits
Removing names and obvious identifiers reduces risk, and it is a good habit. But it is not magic: small details can still add up to identify someone, and stripped data can sometimes be re-identified. Anonymising helps; it does not turn confidential data into public data.
Practical rules
- When in doubt, minimise: paste the smallest slice that still lets the AI help.
- Secrets and client data get the strictest treatment — often "do not paste at all" unless you are in a tool your organisation has approved for it.
- Check whether your tool uses inputs for training, and prefer settings or plans that do not.
Your win today
You can use AI confidently because you know where the line is: classify first, minimise what you share, and give confidential information the extra caution it deserves.