What Not to Paste Into a Chatbot

Every AI conversation leaves your device and travels to someone else's computers. That single fact, kept in mind, heads off the most common AI privacy mistakes. Before pasting anything into a chatbot, ask the question you would ask before emailing it to a stranger: is this mine to share?

Passwords, PINs, and account credentials top the obvious list. No legitimate task requires them, and any workflow that asks for them should be abandoned on sight. The same goes for ID numbers, bank details, and anything that unlocks money or identity.

Other people's information needs their consent, not just your convenience. Client files, patient details, employee records, and student work all belong to someone. Pasting them into a tool without permission can breach contracts, professional duties, or privacy law, depending on your field and country.

Work material carries its own risks. Unreleased product plans, financial figures, legal strategy, and internal documents may be confidential under your employment terms. Many organizations now have explicit AI policies; if yours does, follow it, and if it does not, assume caution is expected.

Personal life deserves boundaries too. Medical questions can be asked in general terms without names and record numbers. Relationship troubles can be discussed without identifying the other person. The tool works just as well on the anonymized version.

Safer habits are easy to build. Remove names and identifying details before pasting. Describe situations in general terms. Use the settings that limit data retention where they exist, and prefer tools from providers whose policies you have actually read.

Create a personal red list before you need it. Decide in calm moments what never goes into any AI tool: client identifiers, unpublished financials, medical details, other people's private information. A rule made in advance is far easier to follow than a judgment made in a hurry.

Teach the boundary to everyone who works with you. A single pasted spreadsheet by one helpful assistant can undo a company policy nobody knew existed. Five minutes of explicit guidance about what never leaves the building is the cheapest compliance program there is.

AI is genuinely useful, and none of this argues against using it. It argues for the same discretion you would apply anywhere else your words leave your hands. Paste freely what is yours and public. Pause on everything else.