Artificial Intelligence has been growing tremendously at a rapid pace. As a result, various Chatbots have come into existence. However, ChatGPT leads the path and sits at the top of the pedestal. ChatGPT has created a huge buzz and is one of the most popular Chatbots as of now. ChatGPT was launched in November 2022.
ChatGPt is constantly trying to evolve itself. With every update, it tries to do away with the discrepancies and rectify the bugs and glitches. In spite of this, there are certain shortcomings with the ChatGPT. ChatGPT is quite beneficial when it comes to asking questions and getting answers as soon as possible. The chatbot is heavily dependent on large language models called LLMs and is used to collect sample data from users and learn from it for future uses.
With data collection comes the risk of privacy, and according to ExpressVPN’s blog post, user privacy is at high risk due to platforms like ChatGPT. Even though many users are unaware of it, it is given that every online software stores some sort of data from users. It could be something as simple as their IP addresses to more detailed information like their location or other private information that users might need to provide a website. For example, social media platforms have databases of users’ data, which consists of all their online activity on the platform.
In This Article
What Is ChatGPT?
ChtGPT is an exceptionally powerful chatbot that allows you to enter the question and get the answers. With the launch of ChatGPT-4, ChatGPT now entertains the prompt beyond text. It now entertains images as prompts, thereby seeing, understanding, and analyzing the image and answering accordingly.
There are multiple other ways for users to use ChatGPT as well. The chatbot can also be used to hold personal conversations if they want to.
Additionally, the platform stores all the data that is asked from it and the answers it provides in the form of a database. It can be said that OpenAI is using ChatGPT to collect user data to have larger sample data for their future projects.
Why is There a Privacy Risk With ChatGPT?
Let us try to look at the privacy risk that you can face if you use ChatGPT. And try to examine how it can be detrimental to you.
1. Open AI has clarified that ChatGPT stores user data. Every question that is being searched by you on ChatGPT is stored in its database. It means that in case you ask any question from ChatGPT that contains personal information is stored in the ChatGPT database. It stays there in the database, even if you have erased the entire conversation from the browser.
2. ChatGPt collects data, which is then essentially stored over various servers. However, the security of these servers is not guaranteed. There is a possibility that such servers might be prone to security breaches. With so many hackers and cyber criminals on
the Internet, no server is completely free from the risk of security breaches. This can cause a huge risk of misuse of the collected user data.
3. Even if there is no security breach, there is a chance that the data stored by ChatGPT can be sold to potential investors or advertisers. Since ChatGPT is an open platform, it does not require a fee. The parent company of the chatbot will need investors and advertisers to keep the website functional.
So there are chances that the company can share the user data without the consent of the users. So it is evident that this could potentially risk the release of so much user data that can be used to benefit major companies and organizations.
4. There is a certainty that in case of a breach, this data stored by ChatGPT can be misused by criminal entities. Since there are a lot of cyber criminals active round the clock who search for prey and are in constant search of data. So there is no guarantee about who might get access to the user data of ChatGPT and how they might choose to use it.
How To Protect Your Data Privacy?
It is of utmost importance for Online users to know and understand data privacy. It is all the more important to know how to secure your data. And the best way to secure your data is to install a firewall on all your devices.
It is also important to password-protect all your important data. You can also enable data encryption on your devices. Besides, you must avoid using platforms that are not secure. Even though platforms like ChatGPT are heavily useful, they can be equally harmful to user privacy. The best way to protect your data while browsing the internet is to restrain from providing your personal or financial information to websites that you can’t trust.
Wrapping Up:
ChatGPT essentially sifts through a huge library of data available on the Internet to provide accurate answers to users. However, the platform is also storing that data without user consent. This poses a huge privacy threat to user data. This is why strict regulations are required to monitor the collection of adat by certain platforms.
No doubt, ChatGPT is an important and useful tool that can be used for learning. But at the same time, you have to understand the element of privacy. There are chances that platforms like this result in a security breach.
