Review a contract, compare salaries, draft a reply to a client: these are useful tasks for ChatGPT. But an employee may also send an external service your discounts, negotiating position and other people's personal data. Managers need clear working rules, rather than a choice between banning AI altogether and allowing uncontrolled uploads.
ChatGPT use can be allowed, but permission must be specific
- A paid personal Plus or Pro subscription is not the same as a corporate environment with agreed terms for processing documents.
- Opting out of training does not stop data from being transferred to the provider, stored or accessed as permitted by the terms.
- A decision requires four elements: what information you are sharing, why, with which service and on what terms.
- Removing a name from a contract does not always anonymise it. Deleting a chat does not undo a transfer that has already taken place.
- If a confidential file has already been uploaded, first establish the facts and restrict further access. Not every upload is a breach, but it needs to be assessed without delay.
What a company shares along with a single document
A file may contain personal data, commercially sensitive information and information that the company has contractually agreed not to disclose to third parties. These risks need to be checked separately.
Consider a typical task: a sales manager asks ChatGPT to improve a commercial proposal and attaches correspondence. Editing the email does not require the buyer's surname, phone number, complaint history, individual discount or the lowest price your director will accept. Yet all of this may be in a single attachment.
Personal data relates to an identified or identifiable person: a client's representative, a job applicant or an employee. In Moldova, Law No. 195/2024 has applied since 23 August 2026. Sharing this information with an external service is data processing, even if the model does not train on it. It requires a lawful basis, a defined purpose, no more data than necessary and appropriate safeguards. The fact that it makes work faster does not, by itself, resolve these issues.
Contractual confidentiality needs to be checked whether or not personal data is involved. An anonymised contract may still contain non-public prices, a calculation formula, the terms of a future deal or a technical solution. Check who may receive the information, for what purposes and whether approval is needed to engage a new service provider. Not all company information automatically qualifies as a trade secret, but removing a name does not remove contractual restrictions.
Control over the document is another issue: where it will be stored, which additional apps will receive it, who can open a shared link and what happens when the employee leaves. Paying for a personal account with a company card does not, by itself, give the company a managed process for access and deletion.
Why paid ChatGPT does not mean corporate protection
The terms depend on the product, workspace and settings, not just on whether the company has paid for a subscription.
| How the service is used | What managers need to consider |
|---|---|
| Personal ChatGPT Free, Plus or Pro | Under OpenAI's terms, content may be used for training. This can be disabled for new conversations, but the setting does not delete chat history or give you the right to upload other people's documents. |
| ChatGPT Business or Enterprise | Inputs and outputs are not used for training by default. You still need to check the contract, your right to share the information, access controls, retention and connected apps. Business and Enterprise do not offer identical capabilities. |
| An application using the OpenAI API | There is no training by default, but data may be retained depending on the feature and mode. Also check what the application developer itself stores. |
Personal plans have a qualification that is easy to miss: by submitting feedback on a response, such as a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, a user may allow the associated conversation to be used for training even after opting out. According to OpenAI's current guidance, ordinary feedback in Business and Enterprise does not grant that permission.
Temporary Chat leaves fewer traces in some respects: while it remains temporary, it is not used for training and does not create new memories. But it still involves transferring data: OpenAI allows a copy to be retained for up to 30 days for safety purposes. Do not treat temporary mode as blanket permission to upload a confidential file.
Check third-party GPTs and connected apps separately. If a GPT uses external interfaces or apps, relevant parts of the prompt may be sent to another provider. Permission to use ChatGPT should not automatically mean permission to use every tool within it.
Your team uses AI, but has no rules for sharing documents?
We can review your workflows, client contracts and service terms. We can help identify which data may be shared, what needs approval and which rules your employees need.
Which files to allow, restrict or keep out of uploads
The following table can serve as a starting point for your policy. It is a recommended internal approach, not a statutory classification or permission for any particular transfer.
| Task or material | A reasonable company rule |
|---|---|
| A draft public product description without personal data or confidential terms | Allow it in an approved service. Check facts and promises before publication. |
| A training contract with entirely fictional parties and terms | Allow it to prepare questions or alternative wording. Do not treat the response as a legal opinion. |
| A single clause from a real contract | Obtain approval, remove unnecessary context and check confidentiality. Sometimes describing the issue without quoting the clause is enough. |
| A client database, correspondence, CVs or a payroll sheet | Do not upload to personal or unapproved services. For a business workflow, separately check the lawful basis, necessity, contracts and access controls. |
| Employees' medical documents, copies of identity documents or material concerning offences | Exclude these from routine tasks. Any exception requires a separate legal assessment and a secure process. |
| Passwords, access keys, recovery codes or payment credentials | Prohibit their inclusion in prompts. If a secret has already been disclosed, arrange for it to be replaced or revoked. |
| Source code, cost calculations or a confidential tender proposal | Check rights and obligations regardless of whether personal data is involved. |
Anonymise material before uploading it, rather than asking the same service to "remove the confidential information first". Otherwise, the original has already been transferred.
Check more than the main text: review comments, tracked changes, additional spreadsheet tabs, signatures and file properties. Replacing a surname with "Employee A" does not help if the person's role, department and circumstances make them easy to identify.
Instead of uploading all your client correspondence, you could frame the task like this:
Draft a polite reply to a buyer asking for a lower price. Do not promise a discount. Suggest discussing a smaller order. Use fictional examples and do not request the client's data.
The service does not need your actual database, negotiation history or minimum margin for this task.
What to put in your company rules before the next upload
Start with a short document that employees can apply without seeking advice on every email. It should contain specific permissions and a clear way to get an exception approved.
- Name the approved services and workspaces. State who manages them, who grants access and which tasks are allowed. Do not use one shared account for an entire department.
- Define information categories. Specify what is allowed, what needs approval and what is prohibited. Designate someone who can approve exceptions and a way to record the decision.
- Set a minimum-excerpt rule. First try a question without a document; if that is not enough, use a prepared extract. Use the full file only where there is a justified need and an approved process.
- Approve integrations and sharing separately. Connecting email, cloud storage or a third-party GPT, or creating a shared link, should be subject to its own rules.
- Describe retention and the termination of access. State who deletes unnecessary chats, separately saved files and memories, and what happens to projects and access when someone changes roles or leaves. Do not promise employees that administrators cannot access corporate data: capabilities depend on the product and permissions.
- Assign responsibility for checking outputs and provide an error-reporting channel. A responsible person must check contracts, calculations, client emails and HR decisions. Employees need to know whom to notify immediately about an incorrect upload.
Before allowing real personal data, the lawyer and the person responsible for IT should prepare a short record of the process:
- Purpose and lawful basis: why these particular data are needed and whether the task can be completed without them. Before launch, check how to meet the requirements to inform people about the purpose, recipients and retention, taking applicable exceptions into account. Consent is not the only lawful basis, but a director's signature is no substitute for this assessment.
- Roles and contract: the controller determines the purposes and means of processing, while the processor acts on the controller's behalf. Check instructions, security, deletion and the engagement of other processors. If your company processes data on a client's behalf, the client may be the controller: check for the client's prior specific or general written authorisation to engage another processor.
- Countries and onward transfers: where data is processed and from where it can be accessed. For transfers to countries in the European Economic Area, Moldovan law excludes the application of the special chapter on international transfers and does not require special authorisations. The other requirements still apply; onward flows outside the EEA need to be checked separately. For other countries, establish the applicable mechanism, such as an adequacy decision by the Centre or appropriate safeguards.
OpenAI's corporate data processing agreement is an important document, but having it does not mean that a particular arrangement already complies with Moldovan law. You need to check the applicable terms, parties, safeguards and actual settings, rather than relying on a statement that "data is stored in Europe".
If a contract or database has already been uploaded to a chat
Do not start by demanding that everyone "delete it all and forget about it". First preserve the necessary incident information with restricted access while also stopping further disclosure.
- Stop new uploads and link sharing. Notify the person responsible for incidents; involve a lawyer and IT where necessary. Do not circulate the file to the entire team for discussion.
- Establish the facts. Identify what was sent, when, from which account and workspace, to which GPT, and whether apps, shared links or other recipients were involved. Record when the company became aware of the situation.
- Restrict further access. Once the necessary information has been recorded, delete accessible copies and links, and check separately saved files, projects and memories. Ask the provider to confirm the measures taken where necessary. Deleting a chat does not automatically delete a separately saved file or recall copies held by others.
- Assess the nature of the breach and the risks. Lawful, approved processing and unauthorised disclosure are different situations. You do not need to wait for a file to appear online before checking whether a personal data breach has occurred.
- Determine notification requirements. Under Article 33 of Law No. 195/2024, the controller must notify the National Centre for Personal Data Protection without undue delay and, where possible, no later than 72 hours after becoming aware of the breach. The exception is where the breach is unlikely to result in a risk to people's rights and freedoms. A processor must notify the controller without undue delay. Where there is a high risk, the people affected must be informed without undue delay under Article 34, subject to the exceptions provided for; this is not a universal rule to "notify everyone within 72 hours". Check contractual obligations to the client separately.
- Document the decision and address the cause. For a personal data breach, retain a record of the circumstances, effects and measures taken, including where notification to the Centre was not required. Then correct the rules, access controls or particular workflow.
Managed AI use starts with a short list of approved tasks, prepared data and designated people. This lets the team benefit from the service without making decisions about someone else's confidentiality at the moment they click send.
Sources
- Republic of Moldova Law No. 195/2024 on personal data protection, current version
- OpenAI: how data is used to improve models and differences between plans
- OpenAI: chat and file retention and deletion
- OpenAI: services agreement for organisations
- OpenAI: data processing addendum
- OpenAI: third-party GPTs and external apps
- OpenAI: data controls when using the API