What Not to Paste Into an AI Chatbot (and What to Do Instead)

AI chatbots are useful for rewriting a tricky email, summarizing a long document or making sense of a confusing letter. It’s easy to paste in whatever is in front of you and hit enter. Most of the time that’s fine. Sometimes it isn’t.

With the popular online chatbots, anything you type leaves your computer. It goes to the company that runs the service. Depending on the service and your settings, it may be stored, reviewed by staff for safety or quality, or used to train future versions of the AI. You usually can’t take it back once it’s sent.

A simple rule: if you wouldn’t put it on a postcard, think twice before pasting it into a chat.

The short list: never paste these

Some things should stay out of chatbots completely, whatever the settings are.

Passwords and PINs. No assistant needs your password to help you. If you’re asking about a login problem, describe it without the password.
Security codes and recovery phrases. This covers two-step verification codes, backup codes and crypto wallet recovery words.
Full card and bank numbers. If you want help with a bank statement, remove the account numbers first.
Government ID numbers. Social security, national insurance, passport and tax ID numbers.
Private keys and access tokens. If you work with software, these are the long strings that let programs log in. Treat them like passwords.

If you paste one of these by accident, delete the chat. But deleting the chat doesn’t guarantee the data is gone everywhere, so also deal with the thing you shared:

Password or PIN: change it.
Card or bank number: contact your bank. They may cancel the card or watch the account.
Backup codes: generate a new set. That makes the old ones stop working.
Crypto recovery phrase: you can’t change a recovery phrase. Move your funds to a new wallet with a new phrase as soon as you can. Crypto losses usually can’t be reversed, so don’t wait.
Access token or private key: revoke it and create a new one.
Government ID number: you usually can’t change it. Keep an eye on your accounts and credit reports, and look into a credit freeze or whatever your country offers instead.

Think carefully before pasting these

These aren’t banned, but they need care.

Other people’s personal details

Your landlord’s phone number, your child’s teacher’s full name, a neighbor’s address. These people didn’t agree to have their details sent to an AI company. Usually the AI doesn’t need them to help.

Client and customer data

If you run a small bakery, your customer order list belongs to your customers as well as to you. If you’re an accountant, therapist, lawyer, recruiter or teacher, you may have legal or professional duties about who sees client information. Pasting it into a personal chatbot account could break those duties, even if nothing bad comes of it.

Health information

Asking an AI to explain a medical term or a test result can help you prepare for a doctor’s appointment. But your name, date of birth and full medical records are very sensitive. Share the part you need explained and leave out who it belongs to. Always confirm anything health-related with a doctor or pharmacist.

Work documents

Contracts, unreleased plans, financial results, internal emails, source code. These may be confidential even if no one has stamped them that way.

Check your company’s rules first

Many workplaces now have a policy on AI tools. It might say:

which AI tools you’re allowed to use for work
that you must use a company-provided version rather than a personal account
what kinds of information are off limits

Company-provided versions are often set up with different data protections than free personal accounts. That’s why the difference matters. If you don’t know your workplace’s policy, ask your manager or IT team before pasting anything from work. That one question can save you a lot of trouble.

Settings worth looking for

Every assistant is set up differently, and menus change often. Most major assistants offer some version of these controls, so it’s worth looking through the settings or privacy page:

Training opt-out. A setting that controls whether your chats can be used to improve the AI. Many people choose to turn this off.
Chat history. Lets you see, delete or stop saving past conversations.
Temporary or private chats. A mode where the conversation isn’t kept in your history. Data may still be held for a time for safety or legal reasons, so it doesn’t make it safe to paste passwords.
Memory. Some assistants remember facts about you between chats. Check what it has saved and remove anything you don’t want kept.
Connected apps. If you’ve linked your email, calendar or files, check what the assistant can access.

If you can’t find a setting, ask the assistant itself where it is, then check the company’s own help pages. The AI may be out of date about its own menus.

Get the same help without the risky details

You can usually get just as good an answer by swapping real details for placeholders. The AI doesn’t need to know your landlord is called Mr. Patel. It just needs to know there’s a landlord.

Here’s a prompt for tidying up text before you share it:

I'm going to paste some text. Before you do anything else, list every
piece of personal or identifying information you can see: names,
addresses, phone numbers, emails, account numbers, dates of birth.
Don't repeat the details themselves, just say what type each one is
and where it appears.

[paste text with obvious details already removed]

Do the main removal yourself before pasting, though. Use this prompt as a second check for anything you missed.

To get help with a real situation using made-up stand-ins:

Help me write a polite but firm email to my landlord about a repair
that hasn't been done. Use [LANDLORD] for their name and [ADDRESS]
for the property. The issue is [describe the problem] and I first
reported it on [rough timeframe, e.g. "about three weeks ago"].

Then fill in the real names yourself after you copy the result out.

For work documents, describe instead of pasting:

I have a supplier contract that's about [length] long. Without seeing
it, what are the main sections I should read carefully, and what
questions should I ask before signing? The contract is for
[general type of service].

Watch out for

Screenshots and photos. Images can contain more than you meant to share: an email address in the corner, a name on a letter in the background, or location details stored invisibly in the file. Crop out what you can see, and to drop the hidden details, take a screenshot of the photo and upload that instead of the original file.
Attached files. A spreadsheet might have hidden columns or extra tabs full of customer data. Open it and check before uploading.
“Find and replace” gaps. If you swap “Sarah” for “[CLIENT]”, her email address or signature may still be further down. Read the whole thing once more.
The AI’s reassurance. If you ask “Is it safe to share this with you?”, the assistant may say yes. It doesn’t decide what happens to your data. The company’s policies and your settings do.
Shared links. Some assistants let you share a conversation with a link. Anyone with that link may be able to see everything in the chat, and some shared chats have ended up showing in search engine results. Deleting the original chat doesn’t always remove a link you’ve already shared, so check the assistant’s sharing settings and delete links you no longer need.

A quick habit to build

Before you press enter, ask yourself three questions:

Is there a password, code or ID number in here?
Does this include someone else’s private details?
Would my employer or client be comfortable with this?

If any answer gives you pause, take a moment to trim, swap in placeholders or describe the situation instead. It takes about thirty seconds, and you’ll still get the help you came for.