Client data and AI: questions to ask before you say yes

Firms hold their clients' most sensitive information: accounts, salaries, contracts, identity documents. Before an AI tool touches any of it, the questions below deserve clear answers in writing. Vague answers are an answer too.

1. Is our data used to train AI models?

It should not be. Ask whether the vendor or its AI providers use your content for training, and under which terms.

2. How is each client's data kept apart?

The safest design is a separate workspace per job, holding only that client's files, so one client's papers can never leak into another's work.

3. Can it reach the internet while working on our files?

A workspace with no internet access cannot send your files anywhere it should not.

4. How long is data kept, and who decides?

Ask for default retention periods for working copies and for finished work, whether you can change them, and whether you can erase a client completely.

5. Who inside our firm can see what?

Access should follow roles: people see the clients and work their role allows, not everything.

6. Can anything be sent without a person's approval?

For client-facing work, the answer should be no, and each job should show who approved it and when.

7. Is there a full record?

Every file opened, every step taken and every approval should be in a log that cannot be quietly edited.

8. Where is it hosted, and which providers are involved?

Ask for the list of sub-processors and the countries involved, and check them against your obligations, such as India's DPDP Act or the GDPR.

How Keyrole answers these

Each job runs in a sealed workspace with only its own client's files and no internet; your data is not used to train AI models; working copies are cleared after 30 days by default and you set how long finished work is kept; people see only what their role allows; nothing reaches a client without approval; and every step is in a tamper-evident audit log. The details, including every provider we use, are in our privacy policy.