"Never paste this" staff poster
One page for the wall by the office computer. What must never go into an AI tool, why it matters, and what to do if it already has.
A policy in a folder does not help a care worker at half past eight on a Friday. This does.
Print it, put it where people actually work, and fill in the two blanks before you do.
Never paste this into an AI tool
✗ Never
- Names of people we support, their families, or staff
- Addresses, postcodes, or which flat
- Dates of birth or NHS numbers
- Photographs of anyone
- Care records, visit notes or incident records
- Anything about safeguarding
- Medical details — conditions, medication, appointments
- Anything that identifies someone without naming them — a rare condition in a small village, “the gentleman on the Tuesday round”
✗ Never, even on a paid personal account
Personal plans have no data processing agreement. Paying for one does not make it safe for work.
Approved for work here: [TOOL AND PLAN], signed in with [WHICH ACCOUNT].
Nothing else.
✓ Fine to use it for
- Job adverts and interview questions
- Rewriting a policy that names nobody
- Plain-English versions of general letters and leaflets
- Drafting a funding bid from figures you already have
- Explaining something you do not understand
Why it matters
On every free and personal plan we checked in September 2026, what you type can be used to train the company’s systems.
Google says that on a personal Gemini account a subset of chats is read by human reviewers, and that those conversations are kept for up to three years. Deleting the chat does not remove them.
So: assume anything you type into an unapproved tool is read by a stranger, and permanent.
If it has already happened
Tell [NAME] today. Not next week.
You will not be in trouble for reporting it. We need to know so we can work out whether anyone is at risk.
[YOUR ORGANISATION] — AI use policy, [DATE]