The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has warned education stakeholders against entering personal, confidential or classified information into public artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Copilot.
The warning is particularly relevant to teachers, lecturers, students, researchers and education administrators who increasingly use AI tools for writing, research, lesson preparation, data analysis and other academic tasks.
NITDA issued the advisory through its Computer Emergency Readiness and Response Team (CERRT.NG), highlighting the potential data protection and security risks associated with using public Large Language Models (LLMs).
What educators and students should be careful about
According to NITDA, information entered into a public AI platform may no longer remain entirely under the control of the person or institution that provided it. Such information may be retained, logged or used by the service provider for purposes including AI model training.
For schools and universities, this means users should be particularly cautious when working with information that identifies students, staff or other members of the academic community.
Examples of information that should not ordinarily be pasted into a public AI tool without proper authorisation include students’ personal details, examination or assessment records, confidential institutional documents, staff information, unpublished research data and other sensitive educational records.
NITDA warned that the exposure of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) could constitute a personal data breach and may result in legal consequences under applicable data protection laws.
The agency also cautioned that disclosure of classified, official-use or confidential information to external AI providers could compromise national security and public trust and potentially expose organisations and staff members to disciplinary or legal consequences.
NITDA’s advice for schools and universities
NITDA recommends that organisations and their staff:
- Do not enter confidential, classified, official-use or personal data into public AI platforms.
- Use only organisation-approved AI tools for official work.
- Remove, anonymise or pseudonymise personal and other sensitive information before using AI tools.
- Check the privacy and data-handling terms of an AI platform before using it.
- Do not upload internal documents unless specifically authorised.
- Follow existing AI, information security and data protection policies when using AI tools.
For educators, this means that using AI to improve a lesson plan, generate discussion questions or refine academic writing may be very different from uploading a class list, students’ examination scripts, identifiable research participants’ information or confidential university documents.
AI can assist education, but data must be protected
The growing use of generative AI in education has created new opportunities for teaching, learning, research and academic administration. However, NITDA’s advisory highlights the need for users to consider what information they are giving an AI system before considering what the system can produce in return.
Teachers and lecturers can therefore adopt a simple principle when using public AI tools: if the information would not ordinarily be shared publicly, it should not be pasted into a public AI platform without appropriate authorisation and safeguards.
For students, the same caution applies to personal information, private correspondence, institutional documents and research materials that have not been cleared for public disclosure.
The responsible use of AI in education is therefore not only about obtaining accurate or useful answers. It also involves protecting the privacy, confidentiality and security of the people and institutions whose information may be processed in the course of using these tools.
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