EDIT: A NEW VERSION OF THE ARTICLE, INCLUDING NEW CHATGPT PRIVACY CONTROLS AND GEMINI IS IN THE WORKS!!!

Post originally written in Nov 2023

Easy answer, yes. Can you prevent it? Maybe

Today I look at one burning question – what happens with my chats when I use Bard, Bing, ChatGPT? How  high is the chance that someone else in Microsoft headquarters will read them? And can I do something to not let it happen?

ChatGPT

• If you do nothing, your data is stored and is used to train OpenAI. 
• Solution: go to Chat>Data controls.  Use anonymous chats. NOTE: do it for every new browser and device! Turned it off at work laptop? Came home and grabbed an Ipad – time to turn on those anonymous chats again. what will you achieve? Data will not be used for training and will be deleted after 30 days, after being monitored for abuse.
• I love my history! Other option? You can fill in “opt-out form” via google form that they offer. No idea how this google form works – is there an OpenAI employee who gets my Google Form, looks up my profile and marks it as “do not train”? I

would for sure trust option 1 more. Moreover, then my chats are stored with OpenAI, but not used for training. Could be an option!

I just use a sandwich approach of opt-out form and turned off history. I filled the google form way before data controls appeared. Result that I am achieving here – chats are stored for 30 days only, and afterwards deleted. Not used for training dataset of Open AI. Level of happiness for controls over my chats – relatively high.

Bing.

Bing offers free access to ChatGPT4 and also allows to play around with Dalle 3 and generate cool image. Image generation is not available even to all users of chatGPT yet. Exciting! Quick search for privacy notice of Bing Chats, and what I see – Enterprise Bing is amazing and stores almost no data! But what about me, usual consumer who wants to save 20 dollars and have fun with Dalle 3 and ChatGPT4?

“Commercial Data Protection” means user and business data is protected, chat data is not saved, Microsoft has no eye-on access to data, and chat data is not used to train the underlying models.

Bing Chat enterprise does *not* have access to your M365 data (that’s M365 Copilot)“

Blogs I found along the way, Oct 2023

Feeling quite happy for commercial users… what about me. Oh wait, I found something relevant. Terms of use. Only non-commercial use is allowed.  

Good that I am using these tools just to create memes that I share in chats with my friends, so I am good. For now

So what happens to data?  So the only thing I found is that in Terms updated on 30 September 2023 it says that data is stored.

How long your data will be stored? What is the point of deleting my chats if they are stored anyway? No clarity yet, and hopefully I could find it someday. 

For now – saving 20 dollars means giving up some of my privacy. Solution: Chat only about irrelevant topics and hope to get access to Bing Enterprise (which is not an option for a person).

 And now my most recent find. Google Bard.

Bard has prettiest and in my opinion, easiest to read privacy notice, sprinkled with beautiful FAQs. I just wish all information was not, once again, spread around 100 of pages and 5 various user agreements, service agreements, content policies… So, my data. Does Google Bard store it?

• Data is stored by default, for 72 hours.  How to avoid it? Go to Bard Activity setting
  • What do you achieve  ? Data will be deleted after 72 hours. 72 hours gap will be used to monitor data and check quality.

Note that some data that is used for training still is stored for 3 years, without identifying you. They also remind you to never mention any personal data in the chats. moms maiden name… Makes it annoying to use bard knowing that my stuff is out there for the next 3 years.

Plot twist: also your location data, home and address are stored. They explain that precise location is not stored, and is mainly used to answer your questions, such as “where is best coffee in my area”. Bard, just like Bing, have access to the internet, so knowing your location, they can help you with weather, coffees, other questions. Still unsure how I feel about my home address.

At least images are not used for training! 🙂 With a misterous addition of “at the time”

and a beautiful summary to help visualise 😀

	Bing	Bard	ChatGPT
Stores your data by default, if you do nothing	Yes	Yes, but limited to 18 months	Yes
Can you make sure your chats are stored for less time?	No. Your best bet is to get Bing Enterprise	Yes, in Bard Activity settings, it can be 72 hours	Yes in data controls. If you use “anonymous” chats, chats will be stored for 30 days only
Are your chats used to train product	Yes	Yes, but assumably pseudonymized, and stored for 3 years	No – in case you fill in Opt put form OR use anonymous data controls; otherwise Yes

Next time I am curious to understand what exactly it means – your data is used to train our model 🙂