Is it safe to put customer data into ChatGPT? A guide for Australian businesses

Short answer: it depends on the tool, your plan and your settings. A staff member pasting a customer complaint into a personal free account is very different from using a business plan set up properly.

This is general information, not legal advice. Speak to your lawyer about your own obligations.

Why it matters

The Privacy Act 1988 applies to many Australian businesses, including those with annual turnover over $3 million and some smaller ones, such as health service providers. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has published guidance on using commercially available AI products. Its advice includes taking care with personal information in public AI tools.

Even if the Act doesn’t apply to you, your customers still expect you to look after their details.

What to check in any AI tool

• Training: Is what you enter used to train the provider’s models? Can you turn this off?
• Plan: Business plans often have different data terms from free and personal plans.
• Storage: Where is the data kept, and for how long?
• Access: Who in your business can see the history?

Terms change, so read the current ones for the plan you’re using.

Simple rules for your team

Write one page that covers:

1. Which AI tools are approved.
2. What must never be entered, such as card details, health information, passwords and identity documents.
3. Removing names and details where possible before pasting.
4. Having a person check AI output before it goes to a customer.
5. Who to ask when unsure.

The newer risk: prompt injection

If you connect AI to your email or CRM, there’s another risk. Someone can hide instructions in a message or web page to trick the AI into revealing data or taking an action it shouldn’t.

To reduce the risk, give the AI only the access it needs, require a person’s approval for sensitive actions, keep a log of what it does and test it before launch.

Start with the basics

The Australian Cyber Security Centre’s Essential Eight is a good starting point for general security, including multi-factor authentication, patching and backups. AI tools sit on top of your existing systems, so weak security there becomes an AI problem too.