Privacy and security

"Data privacy and security is another prominent challenge for generative AI such as ChatGPT. Privacy relates to sensitive personal information that owners do not want to disclose to others (Fang et al., 2017). Data security refers to the practice of protecting information from unauthorized access, corruption, or theft. In the development stage of ChatGPT, a huge amount of personal and private data was used to train it, which threatens privacy (Siau & Wang, 2020). As ChatGPT increases in popularity and usage, it penetrates people’s daily lives and provides greater convenience to them while capturing a plethora of personal information about them. The concerns and accompanying risks are that private information could be exposed to the public, either intentionally or unintentionally. For example, it has been reported that the chat records of some users have become viewable to others due to system errors in ChatGPT (Porter, 2023). Not only individual users but major corporations or governmental agencies are also facing information privacy and security issues. If ChatGPT is used as an inseparable part of daily operations such that important or even confidential information is fed into it, data security will be at risk and could be breached. To address issues regarding privacy and security, users need to be very circumspect when interacting with ChatGPT to avoid disclosing sensitive personal information or confidential information about their organizations. AI companies, especially technology giants, should take appropriate actions to increase user awareness of ethical issues surrounding privacy and security, such as the leakage of trade secrets, and the “do’s and don’ts” to prevent sharing sensitive information with generative AI. Meanwhile, regulations and policies should be in place to protect information privacy and security."