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Using ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot with client information in Australia: what to check

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Short answer: don’t paste client details into the free or personal version of any AI tool. If you want to use AI on client work, use a business plan, check its settings, and tell your clients. That is also what Australia’s privacy regulator, the OAIC, recommends: “do not enter personal information, and particularly sensitive information, into publicly available generative AI tools”.

The rest of this page is the detail: which versions do what with your data, whether the Privacy Act applies to you, the extra rules if you are a tax or migration agent, and a date to put in your calendar.

Personal and business versions are not the same product

The same brand can have very different data terms depending on the plan. As of 14 October 2026:

ChatGPT. On Free, Plus and Pro, OpenAI says it “may use your content to train our models”. You can turn this off under Settings → Data controls → “Improve the model for everyone”. One catch: if you give a thumbs up or down, “the entire conversation associated with that feedback may be used to train our models”. ChatGPT Business, Enterprise and the API are not used for training by default.

Gemini. On a personal Google account, if the Keep Activity setting is on, Google uses your chats to improve its services, including training, “with the help of human reviewers”. Chats that reviewers have seen are kept for three years. Google’s own advice: “Please don’t enter confidential information that you wouldn’t want a reviewer to see.” On a Google Workspace work account, prompts and files are not reviewed by people or used for training without your organisation’s permission.

Copilot. With Microsoft 365 Copilot on a work account, Microsoft says prompts, responses and your work data “aren’t used to train foundation LLMs”. For the personal Copilot app, Microsoft says the same about foundation models since its 18 August 2026 update. It is still a consumer product, so keep client work on the work version.

Training is not the only question. When you type client details into a public chatbot, the OAIC treats that as disclosing the information to the company that runs it. If the system has protections that keep the information inside your organisation, the OAIC says that is a use, not a disclosure. Whether a particular business plan gets you there depends on its contract and settings, which is why the OAIC tells you to read both.

Does the Privacy Act cover your business?

Most businesses with an annual turnover of $3 million or less are not covered. But the exceptions catch a lot of small businesses. Regardless of turnover, you are covered if you are, among others:

The small business exemption is still in place. A draft of the next round of privacy reforms, released for comment between 31 August and 18 September 2026, does not remove it. That draft has not gone to Parliament.

Being exempt doesn’t mean anything goes. Since 10 June 2025, people can sue for serious invasions of privacy, including misuse of their information. The OAIC says this is “broader in application than the Privacy Act”, and reaches businesses the Act doesn’t.

If you are covered and the AI service stores data overseas, one more rule applies. Under APP 8, before you send personal information to an overseas recipient you must take reasonable steps to make sure it is handled properly, and you can be held responsible if the recipient mishandles it.

Tax agents and migration agents: ask the client first

Two professional bodies have now said it plainly.

Tax agents. The Tax Practitioners Board’s guidance, issued 22 July 2026, says you “must obtain permission from each client prior to divulging client information to a third party”, and that this can include entering client information into AI tools, depending on how they are set up. The permission can sit in a signed engagement letter. The TPB recommends telling the client where the data will go and where it will be stored. Tax file numbers bring extra rules.

Migration agents. OMARA’s page on AI is blunter: registered migration agents “need your written consent before they enter your personal details into an AI platform or system”, and sharing client details with AI tools “may be in breach of section 35 of the Code”. The agent stays responsible for the advice, wherever it came from.

Accountants have a separate change to watch: AUSTRAC started regulating accountants, lawyers, conveyancers and real estate professionals for the services covered by the AML/CTF reforms on 1 July 2026. If that applies to you, ask your adviser whether it changes your privacy position too.

Put 10 December 2026 in your calendar

From 10 December 2026, businesses covered by the Privacy Act must say in their privacy policy if they use a computer program to make, or help make, decisions that significantly affect people. Their policy needs to list the kinds of personal information used and the kinds of decisions involved.

This is not just about fully automated systems. The OAIC’s fact sheet names “generative AI used to generate text … including chatbots”, and says AI output used as advice can still count “unless subject to extensive human oversight and control”. If you’re unsure, it says to take a cautious approach and include it.

So if a chatbot helps you assess a rental application, a loan, a job candidate or a patient, and you are covered by the Act, your privacy policy needs updating before December.

A checklist for this week

  1. List where AI already touches client information. Include the staff member who quietly pastes emails into ChatGPT on their phone.
  2. Move client work to a business plan, or stop doing it in AI. Then check the training and sharing settings yourself.
  3. Work out whether the Privacy Act covers you. Health services, opted-in businesses and Commonwealth contractors are covered at any size.
  4. If you’re a tax or migration agent, add AI to your engagement letter or consent form before you use it on client files.
  5. Update your privacy policy to say which AI tools you use and where the data goes. If you use AI in decisions about people, do it before 10 December.

This is a plain-language summary of public guidance, not legal advice. If your situation is unusual, ask a lawyer.

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