Before your firm puts client files into AI

1. Which AI tools does your team actually use, and on which accounts?

• Include personal and free accounts. Business terms cover only the business plan they come with.

2. Which plan is each account on, and what do its terms say about training?

• Business plans of the large providers state that your prompts and files are not used to train their models. For example, Microsoft's terms for Copilot used by organisations. Find the sentence for each tool you use.

3. How long are prompts and files kept, and who can be ordered to keep them longer?

• Retention depends on the plan and the contract, and it can change. Look for the provider's retention period, how deletion works, and what it says about keeping data when a court or authority orders it.

4. Does anything leave those business terms?

• Check features such as web search, plug-ins and connectors. In Copilot, web queries go to Bing, where Microsoft acts as an independent data controller (same Microsoft page).

5. Where is the data processed?

• If your firm or your clients need data kept in one region, check this model by model, not only tool by tool.

6. Do your client contracts, engagement letters or professional rules allow a third party to process their files?

• For lawyers, the Florida Bar recommends getting the client's informed consent before using a third-party generative AI program that would involve disclosing confidential information (Ethics Opinion 24-1, 2024; advisory, not binding).
• For US tax preparers, the FTC's Safeguards Rule asks firms to choose service providers that can keep safeguards, and to set and monitor security expectations in the contract (FTC guide).

7. If consent is needed, could you explain the risk to a client in two sentences?

• If not, that is the first thing to fix, before choosing any tool.

8. Who inside the firm can see what others put in?

• Shared workspaces, chat histories and knowledge bases follow their own access rules. Match them to who may see which client.

9. Is removing client details by hand your only safeguard?

• It works for a single question. It is slow for whole documents, and one missed page is enough.

10. What happens if someone pastes a client file into a personal account today?

• A short written rule, and an approved tool people actually want to use, do more than a ban.

When the answer to question 6 is "no third party"