Using AI chatbots opens people up to numerous risks. The most obvious is that, given their propensity to hallucinate, an AI chatbot’s answers may be factually incorrect while sounding completely authoritative. But beyond this informational risk lies another worrisome one: the risk to your privacy.
When you prompt and chat with an AI chatbot, the company behind it uses your queries and conversation to further train its models. Many companies, including ChatGPT maker OpenAI, say they anonymize this user data so it can’t be traced back to individuals. However, given that no major AI company has let independent auditors verify their privacy claims, you just have to take AI companies at their word if you want to continue using their services.
Well, unless you have an iPhone. There’s a cool trick that Apple smartphone owners can use to access ChatGPT while ensuring that OpenAI can’t personally identify them. Here’s how to do it.
Apple’s Siri helps shield your identity from ChatGPT
There’s no shortage of ways to use ChatGPT on your iPhone. You can do it via the official app, a web browser, or even through a number of third-party apps. But many iPhone owners are still unaware of a safer way to use ChatGPT on their iPhones—at least when it comes to privacy. This is through Siri.
Yes, you can actually use Siri to process your ChatGPT requests, and when doing so, Siri provides a couple of significant privacy benefits you don’t get with other methods of using ChatGPT (provided you follow the steps below).
The first is that when you use Siri to complete your ChatGPT requests, Apple masks your IP address, ensuring that OpenAI doesn’t know your queries are all coming from the same person. It also only lets OpenAI know your general geographic region, and not your specific location, which further obscures your identity.
But even better, thanks to an agreement between Apple and OpenAI, prompts sent to ChatGPT through Siri are excluded from the data it uses to train its models. OpenAI also cannot, except in limited circumstances required by law, store the information you provide or the responses ChatGPT gives you.
By running your ChatGPT queries through Siri, you can help reduce the digital profile OpenAI can build about you, thereby retaining more of your privacy.
How to route your ChatGPT requests through Siri to maintain your privacy
The Apple Intelligence-powered Siri has an extension feature that lets you integrate Apple’s digital assistant with ChatGPT. This allows you to ask Siri to use the large language model to answer questions, generate images, and generate text.
Apple gives you two options for this extension: You can use it with or without signing into your ChatGPT account. If you sign into the ChatGPT Siri extension, OpenAI will get nearly all the data it always gets about you when you use its service, allowing it to tie your specific queries to your OpenAI account. But if you don’t sign in, you’ll get all the privacy benefits mentioned above.
To make sure you’re not signed into the ChatGPT Siri extension, do the following:
- Open the iPhone’s Settings app.
- Tap Apple Intelligence & Siri.
- Tap ChatGPT.
- On the next screen, make sure the “Use ChatGPT” menu item is enabled.
- Next, under the “ChatGPT Account” heading, make sure it shows “Sign In,” which indicates you are not signed in to your ChatGPT account.
Now you are all set up to route your ChatGPT request through Siri while retaining much more of your privacy.
You have multiple options for doing this, including simply pressing and holding the iPhone’s side button. Once Siri activates, you can simply say “Use ChatGPT to…” and then continue with your prompt.
Alternately, if you prefer typing your requests, you can double-tap on the bottom of your iPhone’s screen to bring up the “Ask Siri” text box. Simply preface your query with “Use ChatGPT to…” and Siri will route your request through ChatGPT, while protecting your privacy as detailed above.
A few caveats to keep in mind
Siri’s protective benefits are predicated on a few things. First, as already discussed, you must stay logged out of your ChatGPT account in the ChatGPT extension settings. If you are logged in, ChatGPT will be able to associate all your Siri ChatGPT requests with you.
Second, even if you remain logged out, if you willingly provide ChatGPT with any personally identifying information, such as your name or other personal details, this information will obviously be passed along to ChatGPT with your query.
Of course, Apple’s agreement with OpenAI means that this information cannot be used to train its AI models, but depending on your query and location, OpenAI may be required to retain these details to comply with applicable laws.