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AI & Law
Trade secrets in prompts: the quiet leak when staff use AI
Employees pasting internal material into public AI tools can strip trade secrets of the 'confidentiality' the law requires.
A precondition for trade-secret protection is reasonable measures to keep it secret. Staff pasting source code, client lists, or non-public data into public AI tools may be seen as breaking that confidentiality.
It is worse still because some tools retain or train on inputs, and once data leaves it is hard to recall.
Set a clear AI-use policy distinguishing permitted from prohibited data, deploy enterprise or private options, and block sensitive data technically.