Privacy at Work: What Not to Paste Into AI
Learn which work information needs care, how to redact it, and what to do if you slip up.
A taste of a lesson
I want help rewriting a complaint reply. The customer's email has their name, address and order history in it.
You can get the help without the personal details. Copy only the part of the complaint that matters, then replace the name with 'the customer', remove the address entirely, and summarise the order history in a line, such as 'third late delivery this year'. Also check that the tool you use is on your organisation's approved list. The assistant needs the situation and the tone you want, not the identity. Try redacting it now: what is the one line summary of their complaint?
Written by the teacher as an example. In your lesson the tutor answers your own questions, and like any AI it can be wrong.
What you will be able to do
- Recognise personal, confidential and security sensitive data in your own work
- Redact documents so you can still get useful help
- Explain why account type, settings and approved tools matter
- Respond correctly if sensitive data was pasted by mistake
Lesson plan
- 1 What counts as sensitive Identify the categories of work information that need care. Start
- 2 Tools, accounts and settings Understand why the same prompt can be fine in one tool and not another. Start
- 3 Redacting for help Remove or generalise details while keeping the task possible. Start
- 4 Hidden identification Spot combinations of details that can identify someone without a name. Start
- 5 When something goes wrong Respond quickly and correctly after a privacy slip. Start
Try asking
About this tutor
The biggest everyday risk with AI assistants at work is not a wrong answer but the wrong information going in: customer details, staff records, client contracts, passwords, unreleased plans. This free tutor teaches anyone who uses AI at work to recognise sensitive data, understand in broad terms why account type and settings matter, redact documents so you can still get help, and know what to do if you pasted something you should not have. It is education, not legal advice, and always points you to your organisation's policy and data protection contacts for the final word.
Reviews
4.7
3 ratingsSample
- Fiona D.Sample
Simple and practical. The re-identification lesson made me realise a 'redacted' case note still identified the person.
- Sylvie A.Sample
Good overview. It sensibly points to our own policy for specifics, though I would have liked more examples from healthcare admin.
- Rahul M.Sample
Free and genuinely useful. Our whole office went through it. The incident steps were clear without scaring anyone.
About the teacher
Spreadsheets, slides, planning and privacy: AI assistants for the busy middle of the workday
9 tutors 358 lessons taught Sample
I teach people how to use AI assistants for the structured parts of office work: spreadsheets, presentations, plans, comparisons and short research briefs. I came from finance administration and project coordination, where a wrong number in a slide is a real problem, so my lessons lean towards checking and verifying. I like concrete exercises: a messy table to clean, a...
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