A useful website assistant should help you share enough information for the task, without encouraging you to paste your entire private life into a chat bubble.
For an initial project discussion, a broad description is usually enough. “We need a booking system for our clinic” explains the need. Uploading identifiable patient records does not belong in that conversation.
Keep these details out
Do not share passwords, API keys, payment card information, identity documents or confidential client files. Avoid sensitive information about other people. Use an anonymised description when explaining a problem.
If a task genuinely requires private documents, ask the business for the appropriate secure route and what information it needs. An ordinary website chat is not automatically the right place.
Ask how the conversation is handled
Who provides the assistant? Which messages are sent to that provider? How long does the business retain the conversation? How can you request deletion? Look for specific answers in the website’s privacy information.
For Rico, our privacy policy describes the current processing and retention arrangements. Do not assume another company’s chatbot uses the same rules.
Businesses have design work to do too
Put a short, understandable notice near the chat and link to the full explanation. Ask for personal details only when the visitor’s task needs them. Keep optional marketing permission separate.
A conversation identifier is not permission to read a transcript. The application needs to verify ownership and keep private history away from unrelated visitors. It also needs a real deletion process, rather than treating closing the chat as deletion.
If you have already shared something private
Contact the business through its published privacy contact and describe the issue without repeating the sensitive information. If a password or key was disclosed, replace it through the relevant account’s secure settings. Deleting a message does not make an exposed credential safe again.
Good conversational design includes knowing what not to ask. Our guide to preparing chatbot knowledge explains how to build those boundaries into the assistant’s instructions.
