Lesson 5 of 6
Privacy of your health data
6 min read
You want AI to explain your results, so you paste the whole report — name, date of birth, address and all. Helpful? Yes. But you just handed your identity to a chatbot. There's a safer way.
Keep the question, drop the identity
You rarely need to identify yourself to get a useful answer. Before you paste, [de-identify](glossary://de-identify): remove your name, date of birth, address, and any record or ID numbers. Keep the part that matters — the actual question — and the answer is just as good, minus the risk.
The question is what AI needs; your identity isn't. Strip the identifying details and you keep the help without the exposure.
What a chat can keep
Health details are sensitive, and what you type may be stored, reviewed to improve the service, or leak if an account is breached. You can't control a company's servers, but you can control what leaves your hands. Check the provider's data settings, turn off training on your chats if you can, and use a temporary chat for anything sensitive.
You can't police their servers, but you decide what you send. The safest detail is the one you never paste.
Be extra careful with someone else's health information — a family member's or a patient's. Sharing identifiable details that aren't yours can break their trust and, for some jobs, the law.
The shape of it
- —De-identify before you paste — remove name, birth date, address, and ID numbers.
- —Keep the question; your identity is almost never needed for a good answer.
- —Check data settings, turn off chat training, and use temporary chats for sensitive things.
You want AI to help you understand a blood test. What's the safest way to ask?
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