AI chatbots and privacy: How to keep personal info secure
More people are embracing artificial intelligence, having conversations with chatbots and sharing personal information, from medical issues to financial information.
About half of all American adults report having used an AI tool, according to a June study from the Pew Research Center.
The increase in data sharing has triggered privacy concerns, as many AI companies say they use users' chatbot conversations to train their large language models.
"Once that data is being used for training purposes, we don't really know, kind of, what they're doing with it, what data they're removing, how they're trying to clean it in advance, very little transparency, and we just don't know really, what those processes look like from the outside," Dr. Jennifer King, Privacy and Data Policy Fellow at the Stanford University Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, told "Good Morning America" in an interview that aired Monday.
Popular AI tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Claude, and Google's Gemini say they store user conversations for varying time periods and use them to train their models, but users have the option to delete past chats or change settings to turn off some features.
The companies also state in their policies that if chats are flagged for any reason, the companies may retain them for longer time periods for legal purposes.
King, who led a 2025 study on AI and privacy, recommends AI chatbot users use caution when sharing information with AI tools.
King also offered these tips to keep your information more secure:
- Don't upload sensitive files, such as medical files, without redacting all personal information.
- Use temporary chats, which companies may use less of for training.
- Opt out of AI companies using your data for training purposes, if the option is available.
- Review policies and updates regularly so you can adjust settings, if you desire.
