Photograph: MR3D/Alamy Generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot are rapidly evolving, fueling concerns that the technology could open the door to multiple privacy and security issues, particularly in the workplace.
In May, privacy campaigners dubbed Microsoft’s new Recall tool a potential “ privacy nightmare ” due to its ability to take screenshots of your laptop every few seconds. The feature has caught the attention of UK regulator the Information Commissioner’s Office , which is asking Microsoft to reveal more about the safety of the product launching soon in its Copilot+ PCs.
Concerns are also mounting over OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has demonstrated screenshotting abilities in its soon-to-launch macOS app that privacy experts say could result in the capture of sensitive data.
The US House of Representatives has banned the use of Microsoft’s Copilot among staff members after it was deemed by the Office of Cybersecurity to be a risk to users due to “the threat of leaking House data to non-House approved cloud services.”
Meanwhile, market analyst Gartner has cautioned that “using Copilot for Microsoft 365 exposes the risks of sensitive data and content exposure internally and externally.” And last month, Google was forced to make adjustments to its new search feature, AI Overviews, after screenshots of bizarre and misleading answers to queries went viral. Overexposed
For those using generative AI at work, one of the biggest challenges is the risk of inadvertently exposing sensitive data. Most generative AI systems are “essentially big sponges,” says Camden Woollven, group head of AI at risk management firm GRC International Group. “They soak up huge amounts of information from the internet to train their language models.”
AI companies are “hungry for data to train their models,” and are “seemingly making it behaviorally attractive” to do so, says Steve Elcock, CEO and founder at software firm Elementsuite. This vast amount of data collection means there’s the potential for sensitive information to be put “into somebody else’s ecosystem,” says Jeff Watkins, chief product and technology officer at digital consultancy xDesign. “It could also later be extracted through clever prompting.”
At the same time, there’s the threat of […]
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