Four Things to Check Before You Put Data Into AI
The habit of checking personal information, confidential material, permission and verification before entering work data into an AI tool.
- AI
- security
- personal data
Just because AI organizes your sentences well does not mean you may paste in every document. Convenience starts at the input step, and so do mistakes. Before entering material I check four things.
The four checks
- Personal information — is there anything that identifies a person: name, contact, address, account number
- Non-public information — does it include contract terms, internal documents or plans not yet announced
- Permission — do I have the right and the consent to enter this material into this tool
- Verification method — can I compare the sentences AI changed against the source
Removing names alone does not always anonymize. With a date, a title and a place together, a person can still be guessed. Keep only what is needed and reduce unique combinations too. When you cannot decide, not entering it is the safer side.
Do not publish the result as is
A summary the AI wrote may read well while adding causal relations or certainty that the original does not contain. When making a public post, place the sentences confirmed from the source next to the sentences AI organized and compare. Check numbers, dates, quotations and anything about people directly.
This is not an argument against using AI. It is an argument for writing within a range a person can take responsibility for: what you entered and what you verified. Take the speed, but decide the line that protects the owner of the data and the reader first.