this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
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Your general understanding is entirely correct, but:
Microsoft is almost certainly recording these summarization requests for QA and future training runs; that’s where the leakage would happen.
100% agree. At this point I am assuming everything sent through their servers is actively being collected for LLM training.
That is kind of assuming the worst case scenario though. You wouldn’t assume that QA can read every email you send through their mail servers ”just because ”
This article sounds a bit like engagement bait based on the idea that any use of LLMs is inherently a privacy violation. I don’t see how pushing the text through a specific class of software is worse than storing confidential data in the mailbox though.
That is assuming that they don’t leak data for training but the article doesn’t mention that.
Always assume the worst, I gaurentee it is usually that bad in reality. Companies absolutely hate spending money on IT and security is always an after thought. API logs for the production systems that contain your full legal name, DOB, SSN, and home address? Yea wide open and accessible by anyone. Production databases with employee SSN, address, salary information? Same thing, look up how much the worthless management is making and cry.
Booz Allen just got shit on because of the dude they hired who specifically sought out consulting for the IRS so he could steal Trumps IRS records.
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0371
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_E._Littlejohn
This is some pathetic chuddery you’re spewing…
I absolutely would, and Microsoft explicitly maintains the right to do that in their standard T&C, both for emails and for any data passed through their AI products.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/servicesagreement#14s_AIServices
That seems to be the terms for the personal edition of Microsoft 365 though? I’m pretty sure the enterprise edition that has the features like DLP and tagging content as confidential would have a separate agreement where they are not passing on the data.
That is like the main selling point of paying extra for enterprise AI services over the free publicly available ones.
Unless this boundary has actually been crossed in which case, yes. It’s very serious.
This part applies to all customers:
And while Microsoft has many variations of licensing terms for different jurisdictions and market segments, what they generally promise to opted-out enterprise customers is that they won’t use their inputs to train “public foundation models”. They’re still retaining those inputs, and they reserve the right to use them for training proprietary or specialized models, like safety-filters or summarizers meant to act as part of their broader AI platform, which could leak down the line.
That’s also assuming Microsoft are competent, good-faith actors — which they definitely aren’t.