Privacy
how you protect sensitive information
Newsrooms handle sensitive information: sources, personal data, and material that could put people at risk. This card is about protecting that information when AI tools are involved. A team pauses here because a privacy slip can endanger a source or break a trust.
Questions to explore
- What sensitive information could end up in an AI tool, and how do you prevent it?
- How do you protect the identity of a source when using AI in your workflow?
- What does an outside tool do with the personal data you put into it?
- Which tasks involving private information should never touch an external system?
- How do you weigh convenience against the privacy of the people in your reporting?
Expert voices
“How do you protect personal data and sources, and what does privacy cost? Professional tools handle data better but are mostly unavailable or unaffordable in regions like Southern Africa.”
“Establish strict protocols to prevent sensitive or confidential material from being entered into AI systems that may store it or use it for training.”
“Never upload sensitive source material to third-party AI tools unless they guarantee encryption and data deletion, or you anonymize it first. For confidential investigations, consider local, offline AI; cloud tools are not secure enough.”
Things to consider
- Information shared with an outside tool may leave your control.
- Protecting a source can depend on keeping their details out of any external system.
- Convenience and privacy often pull in opposite directions, and the choice is yours to make.
Pull Privacy when it is relevant and set it aside when it is not. Pair it with the other AI Conversations cards, lay them out on a table, and use the questions above to get everyone on the same page. Capture what you discuss on sticky notes or in a shared doc.
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