Where the lines are

This module has made you faster: better prompts, faster writing, safer spreadsheets, a free tutor. This last lesson is about not getting hurt by that speed. Not abstract philosophy — the four practical lines that real people at real companies cross by accident.

Line 1 — Confidentiality

Module 1 said it and it leads every corporate AI policy on earth: never paste confidential data into a tool your company has not approved.

What counts as confidential is broader than people think:

• Customer names, contact details, account records
• Salaries, performance reviews, anything about identifiable colleagues
• Unreleased financials, strategy documents, contracts
• Source code and internal system details

Why it matters: what you type may be stored, reviewed, or used in ways you cannot see or undo. Employees at major companies have pasted internal source code into public chatbots; those companies now ban or restrict the tools. The fix costs nothing: use dummy data (as the spreadsheet lesson showed), describe the shape of the problem, or use whatever internal tool your company provides. When in doubt, ask IT — the question makes you look careful, not clueless.