Before You Paste: Privacy and Data Boundaries

Beginners, staff, clients, families, students, and community learners who need practical habits for deciding what can and cannot go into AI tools.

Audience

Beginners, staff, clients, families, students, and community learners who need practical habits for deciding what can and cannot go into AI tools.

What Do You Need

  • Time or session format: A practical sorting and rewrite session with time for questions about everyday information boundaries.
  • Prior knowledge: Basic AI expectations are helpful, but no technical background is required.
  • Device, tool, or account needs: A chatbot is optional; the core practice can be done with printed snippets and worksheets.
  • Materials or examples: Sorting cards, sample snippets, safe rewrite examples, and a pause-before-you-paste checklist.
  • Privacy and safety boundaries: Use fictional or sanitized examples only; do not ask learners to paste real personal, client, student, medical, financial, account, or workplace-sensitive information.
  • Participation options: Learners may sort examples alone, work with a partner, discuss as a group, or observe before attempting rewrites.

Purpose

Teach what should not be pasted into public or poorly understood AI tools, and give learners a simple pause-and-sort habit before sharing information.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this module, learners should be able to:

  1. Sort sample content into safe to paste, sanitize first, and do not paste.
  2. Explain why context, identity, customer data, and private details matter.
  3. Rewrite a risky prompt into a safer version.

Core Ideas

  • Privacy is a practical habit, not a fear tactic.
  • Public, private, client, student, medical, financial, and account information need different handling.
  • Sanitizing means removing identifying or sensitive details, not just changing names.
  • When in doubt, pause before pasting.

Class Flow

  • Privacy framing
  • Demonstration of risky vs safer prompt
  • Sorting lab
  • Sanitizing practice
  • Group discussion
  • Take-home pause card

Hands-On Lab

Learners sort example snippets into three categories: safe to paste, sanitize first, and do not paste. Then they revise one risky prompt into a safer version.

Lab Materials

  • Sorting cards or worksheet
  • Example snippets with different risk levels
  • Safe rewrite examples
  • Pause-before-you-paste checklist

Reflection Questions

  • What made something unsafe to paste?
  • What information could identify a person, customer, household, employee, or account?
  • What would you ask before using an unfamiliar AI tool?
  • When should you use a different process instead of AI?

Take-Home Artifact

A “Pause Before You Paste” card with three categories: safe, sanitize, stop.

Risks to Avoid

  • Making privacy sound like panic.
  • Creating fake certainty about every tool’s data handling.
  • Teaching learners to remove only names while leaving identifying context.

Facilitator Notes

Use realistic examples but avoid real client or personal data. Keep the focus on habits learners can apply immediately.

Accessibility and Inclusion Notes

Use color and text labels together for sorting. Read examples aloud. Include family, school, small-business, and workplace examples.

Cross-Generation Potential

Yes. This is suitable for families, senior centers, parents, grandparents, students, and caregivers because safe sharing habits apply across settings.

  • Pause before you paste.
  • Human ownership remains.
  • Trust, but check.
  • Do not automate confusion.

Status Notes

Sketch ready for privacy review. Needs sorting cards and a final handout.

Review status

  • Package lifecycle: Sketch
  • Learner availability: Planned
  • Review needs: Needs privacy review

Review this module

Source: modules/before-you-paste-privacy-and-data-boundaries/module.md