Confidentiality and your current employer
Professional experience is the main reason an AI-training platform may want to engage you.
But experience is not the same as unrestricted access to the information encountered during your career.
A banker may know the details of a confidential refinancing. A lawyer may have reviewed privileged advice. A doctor may have access to patient records. An engineer may understand a proprietary design.
These experiences can strengthen professional judgement, but the underlying information may belong to an employer, client or another party.
Before accepting an assignment, understand what you are permitted to do with the knowledge you hold.
Start with your employment contract
If you currently have a job, check whether your employment agreement addresses external work.
Relevant clauses may cover additional employment, consulting, conflicts of interest, confidentiality, intellectual property and the use of company resources.
A restriction may require disclosure or prior approval rather than imposing an outright prohibition.
Do not assume that work performed during evenings or weekends is automatically outside your employer's legitimate interests.
The legal enforceability of restrictions depends on the contract and applicable law.
For example, UK law limits certain exclusivity clauses in zero-hours arrangements, but that protection should not be assumed to apply to every senior employee or independent contractor. [1]
Your own employment terms and jurisdiction determine what needs to be checked.
Understand conflicts of interest
A conflict can arise even when you do not disclose confidential information.
Imagine working for a financial institution while evaluating AI-generated recommendations concerning a competitor's products. Or consider an attorney asked to analyse a hypothetical dispute that closely resembles a current client's matter.
The work may raise questions about divided loyalties, the use of restricted knowledge or professional independence.
US financial-industry professionals subject to FINRA Rule 3270 must provide prior written notice of covered outside business activities to their member firm. This requirement applies to the registered persons covered by that rule, not automatically to everyone working in finance. [2]
Other employers, professional bodies and jurisdictions have different requirements.
If you are subject to regulated-conduct obligations, check them before applying.
Confidentiality is broader than document sharing
It is easy to recognise that uploading a confidential client presentation would be inappropriate.
More subtle situations deserve equal attention.
A professional might describe a supposedly anonymous transaction while including enough details for someone to identify the company. Another might reproduce a proprietary financial model using altered labels but unchanged confidential assumptions.
Changing names is not necessarily sufficient.
The UK Information Commissioner's Office distinguishes pseudonymisation from anonymisation and explains that pseudonymised information can remain subject to data protection law. [3]
A practical starting principle is to avoid bringing non-public employer, client or patient information into external AI systems unless you have a clear, lawful authorisation and the necessary safeguards.
Use genuinely public information or independently created fictional examples wherever possible.
Particular considerations for lawyers
Confidentiality is a fundamental professional duty.
In England and Wales, the Solicitors Regulation Authority requires solicitors to protect current and former client information, subject to relevant exceptions, and imposes obligations concerning conflicts. [4]
In the United States, ABA Model Rule 1.6 addresses protection of information relating to client representation. The Model Rules are not automatically the law in every state; the applicable jurisdiction's adopted rules must be checked. [5]
For AI-training assignments, a lawyer should be especially careful about revealing information indirectly through examples.
A fictional legal problem should be genuinely fictional, not a lightly disguised account of a live matter.
Also consider whether the task asks you to provide professional services or simply to evaluate model output. Those activities may raise different professional questions.
Particular considerations for medical professionals
Clinicians have strong obligations regarding patient information.
The UK's General Medical Council provides guidance on confidentiality, including protecting patient information and using the minimum personal information necessary for legitimate purposes. [6]
A clinical AI-training task might involve evaluating reasoning using a synthetic patient scenario. That is different from uploading a real patient's case history into an external service.
Even where identifying fields have been removed, the remaining facts may still permit identification in some circumstances.
Medical professionals should also consider registration conditions, institutional policies and relevant local privacy laws.
These obligations cannot be resolved merely by a platform stating that its systems are secure.
Finance, consulting, engineering and research
Confidentiality issues are not limited to regulated professions.
Financial experts may hold price-sensitive information, unpublished forecasts or restricted investment analyses.
Consultants may know clients' pricing, operating processes or strategic plans.
Engineers and researchers may possess unpublished technical results, source code, designs or trade secrets.
The important distinction is between using your ability to solve a problem and reproducing someone else's protected work.
An expert can construct a fictional covenant model, write a fresh business case or solve an independently developed engineering problem without disclosing the underlying confidential projects that developed their expertise.
Keep personal and professional resources separate
Use personal equipment and accounts where permitted and appropriate.
Do not assume that your employer's laptop, licensed software, data subscriptions or secure network may be used for unrelated paid work.
Review what the AI-training provider permits as well. Some work may be restricted to particular systems or environments.
Think carefully before saving project material locally, forwarding it to personal email or uploading it into another AI assistant.
Follow the contractual security rules of the actual engagement.
If you're unsure, resolve it before accepting
A useful set of questions is:
Do I have permission to take outside paid work? Could this assignment create a conflict? Am I being asked to disclose or recreate restricted information? Do I understand where submitted information will go?
If any answer is unclear, seek guidance from the appropriate internal compliance function, professional body or qualified adviser.
The aim is not to avoid worthwhile work. It is to ensure that an additional contract does not put your main career or professional obligations at risk.
Frequently asked questions
1. Can I use examples from my previous jobs?
Only where doing so respects applicable confidentiality, contractual and legal obligations. Public, independently created or properly authorised examples are safer starting points than material drawn from restricted transactions or client records.
2. Do I need my employer's permission?
It depends on your contract, role, regulator and jurisdiction. Some professionals must disclose external business activities, while others may face different approval requirements.
3. Can I anonymise a real client case?
Removing a name does not automatically make information anonymous or suitable for disclosure. Consider re-identification risks and the original restrictions before sharing anything derived from real client or patient material.
Sources
[1] UK government, exclusivity clauses and zero-hours contracts: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/zero-hours-contracts-guidance-for-employers
[2] FINRA Rule 3270, outside business activities: https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/rulebooks/finra-rules/3270
[3] ICO, pseudonymisation and personal data: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/data-sharing/anonymisation/pseudonymisation/
[4] Solicitors Regulation Authority, Code of Conduct: https://guidance.sra.org.uk/solicitors/standards-regulations/code-conduct-solicitors/
[5] American Bar Association, Model Rule 1.6: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_1_6_confidentiality_of_information/
[6] General Medical Council, confidentiality guidance: https://www.gmc-uk.org/professional-standards/the-professional-standards/confidentiality
This guide provides general information, not legal advice. Professional and contractual obligations differ by role, employer and jurisdiction. DecileAI cannot approve outside employment or authorise disclosure of third-party information.