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Use AI chatbots without oversharing

AI chatbots keep what you type, and people at the company may read it. Know what to keep out, and change the settings that matter.

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  • Reviewed

An AI chatbot feels like a private conversation, but what you type is stored on the company's servers, often for months or years, and some chats are read by people who work for the company. This guide covers ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Microsoft Copilot and Meta AI, and services that say they keep less. The three Essential items take about ten minutes. Menus in these apps change often; if a step doesn't match, look for the same words in the app's settings.

Essential

The safest information is the information you never type. The companies themselves ask you not to enter anything confidential, because reviewers may see it and it may be used to improve their products. Stored chats can also leak or be handed over. A question can reveal something about you by itself, and many questions together reveal more.

All chatbots

  1. Never paste passwords, login codes, card or bank details, or ID numbers.
  2. Leave out health records, other people's personal details and photos of other people, unless they agree.
  3. Don't paste confidential work documents into a personal account: check your employer's rules first (see the last item).
  4. If you need help with a sensitive text, remove names, numbers and places first.
Essential

Each company keeps your chats and has its own rules about who may read them.

ChatGPT

  1. Chats stay in your account until you delete them. Deleted chats are removed from OpenAI's systems within 30 days, unless OpenAI must keep them for security or legal reasons, or has already removed your details from them.

Gemini

  1. Some chats are read by human reviewers, including outside companies, after they are disconnected from your account. Reviewed chats are kept for up to three years, even if you delete your activity.
  2. Your activity is deleted automatically after 18 months unless you change it.

Claude

  1. Deleted chats are removed from Anthropic's systems within 30 days. If you allow training, chats may be kept, without your name, for up to five years. Chats flagged for breaking the rules are kept for up to two years.

Copilot

  1. Microsoft's pages for the current Copilot app, released in August 2026, don't say how long chats are kept. Its pages for the older app say 18 months, and that some chats are reviewed by people with no way to opt out.

Meta AI

  1. Meta may review your conversations, automatically or by people, and uses them to improve its AI and, depending on where you live, to personalise ads. When Meta AI can't answer, it may send your messages to partner companies.
Essential

By default, most of these services may use your chats to train their AI. You can turn this off. From then on your chats aren't used for new training, but what a model has already learned from them stays. It doesn't stop the company keeping or reviewing chats for safety.

ChatGPT

  1. Open Settings → Data controls (on a phone: open the sidebar, then your profile icon).
  2. Turn off Improve the model for everyone. Voice mode has its own setting on the same screen.

Gemini

  1. On a computer, open gemini.google.com and click Settings & help → Activity. In the Gemini app, tap Menu, your profile picture, then Gemini Apps Activity.
  2. Next to Keep Activity, tap On, then Turn off (or Turn off and delete activity). Chats are then kept for 72 hours. Gemini can no longer use Gmail, Drive and other Workspace apps while this is off.

Claude

  1. Open Settings → Privacy.
  2. Turn off Help Improve our AI models. Chats already used in training stay there.

Copilot

  1. In the current Copilot app, Microsoft says your prompts, responses and files aren't used to train its AI models, and there is no switch.
  2. In the older app, select your profile icon, then your name, then Privacy, and turn off Training on conversation activity and Training on voice conversations.

Meta AI

  1. Meta's help pages describe no switch to stop training on Meta AI chats. Treat everything you type there as used by Meta.
Recommended

Several chatbots now remember facts about you across chats. Deleting a chat doesn't always delete what was remembered from it, so check both.

ChatGPT

  1. Open Settings → Personalization → Memory to see and delete what ChatGPT remembers, or turn Memory off.
  2. Delete the chat where you first shared something too: deleting the chat alone doesn't delete the saved memory, and deleting the memory alone doesn't delete the chat.

Gemini

  1. Open Activity (as above), choose Delete, then a time range or All time.
  2. To make Gemini forget something, delete the chats it came from. Where it is offered, you can also remove it under Menu, your profile picture, Personal Intelligence → Memory summary, and turn Memory on or off there.
  3. Set auto-delete to 3 months in the same Activity page.

Claude

  1. To delete a chat, click ⋮ next to it, then Delete.
  2. Open Settings → Your Claude and select Manage next to Your memory to read and delete what Claude remembers. Deleting a chat doesn't remove memories made from it.

Copilot

  1. To delete all chats, go to account.microsoft.com/privacy/copilot and select Delete all activity history.
  2. To delete what Copilot remembers, open Settings → Personalization, select Manage next to Saved memories, then Delete all memories.

Meta AI

  1. In the Meta AI app, tap Menu → Settings → Data & privacy → Manage your information → Delete all chats and media.
Recommended

A temporary or incognito chat isn't saved to your history or memory and isn't used for training. The company still keeps a copy for a short time for safety: up to 30 days at OpenAI and Anthropic, 72 hours at Google.

ChatGPT

  1. Start a new chat and select Temporary.
  2. Choose Unpersonalized: a personalized temporary chat can still use your saved memories.

Gemini

  1. Next to New chat, click Temporary chat. It isn't available on work or school accounts.

Claude

  1. Click the ghost icon at the top right of a new chat to start an incognito chat.
Recommended

Some AI services say they keep less about you. They still run on someone else's computer: your question is read there to produce the answer, so the first item of this guide applies to them too, and their promises are ones you can't check yourself. Privacy Guides recommends only the last option below, a model on your own computer.

Duck.ai

  1. Duck.ai, from DuckDuckGo, passes your questions to models from other companies, such as OpenAI and Anthropic. DuckDuckGo says it removes your IP address and other identifying details first.
  2. DuckDuckGo says those companies have agreed not to use your chats to train their models and to delete them within 30 days at most, with limited exceptions for safety and legal reasons. Protection differs between models: the privacy notice in each chat says which applies.
  3. Recent chats are saved only on your device, unless you turn saving off or choose encrypted storage on DuckDuckGo's servers. Delete them with the delete icon next to a chat, or all at once with the Fire Button.

Lumo

  1. Lumo, from Proton, runs open-source models on servers Proton controls. Proton says it keeps no logs of your chats and doesn't use them for training, unless you choose to send feedback on an answer.
  2. With a Proton account, your chat history is stored encrypted so that only you can read it, Proton says. As a guest, without an account, the chat is erased when the session ends.
  3. Your question is still decrypted on Proton's servers to produce the answer. The encryption protects the stored history, not the moment the answer is made.

On your own computer

  1. A model on your own computer is the most private option: what you type doesn't leave the device. Privacy Guides names apps such as Ollama. Download models from inside the app, not from random sites.
  2. Small models run on as little as 8 GB of memory, but slowly. Privacy Guides says the smallest models are good only for simple tasks such as summaries, so expect weaker answers than from the big services.
Recommended

A shared chat link can be opened by anyone who has it, and links don't expire. Deleting the chat doesn't always delete the link. Whoever gets into your account can also read your whole history.

ChatGPT

  1. Open Settings → Data controls → Shared links → Manage and delete links you don't need.
  2. Turn on multi-factor authentication in Settings → Security and login. Set up more than one method if you can: if you lose access to all of them, OpenAI support can restore access only once, and it can take a few days.

Gemini

  1. On gemini.google.com, open Settings → Your public links and delete the links you don't need.
  2. Protect your Google Account: see Turn on two-step verification.

Claude

  1. Open Settings → Privacy, select Manage next to Shared chats, and unshare what you don't need.

Meta AI

  1. Open the conversation, tap Menu at the top right, then Delete link.
Advanced

Files and photos you upload are kept like your chats, and some services keep a separate copy. A shared chat on Gemini includes the images in it. A photo can carry the place where it was taken.

All chatbots

  1. Remove the location from a photo before uploading it: see Remove location from your photos.
  2. In ChatGPT, deleting a chat doesn't delete files saved separately in Library: delete them there too.
  3. If a chatbot is connected to your email or files, it can use them in answers. Connect only what you need.
Advanced

A personal account and a work account are treated differently. OpenAI's business plans and Microsoft's work accounts are not used for training by default, but on a work account your employer's administrators may be able to see your chats.

All chatbots

  1. Ask your employer which chatbot, if any, you may use for work.
  2. Don't paste work documents into a personal account.
  3. On a work account, assume your employer can see what you type.