ChatGPT privacy features in Apple Intelligence may change how I use AI

Apple has already released the fourth iOS 18 beta, but there’s no trace of Apple Intelligence in it. However, it looks like Apple’s AI features will soon be available to test. Apple is ramping up its Apple Intelligence marketing efforts. The company has scheduled a developer event for August 14th in Cupertino where it’ll recap Apple Intelligence. Separately, a new privacy-centered interview with Apple execs also tackles Apple Intelligence and ChatGPT privacy in iOS 18.

As a fan of genAI products in general and a ChatGPT Plus user who thinks strong privacy is the main feature of any AI chatbot, I was immediately interested to see what Apple had to say about the way it secures and protects user data with Apple Intelligence and ChatGPT.

My immediate conclusion is that I’ll use ChatGPT in iOS 18 differently depending on what I need. It’s all because of the privacy features built into Apple Intelligence.

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Katie Skinner, Apple’s User Privacy Engineering Manager, and Sandy Parakilas, Apple’s Privacy Product Marketing Lead, discussed Apple privacy with YouTuber Andru Edwards . They talked about all sorts of privacy features in Apple products. But the ones I was most interested in concerned Apple Intelligence and ChatGPT.

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From WWDC 2024, we already know that Apple Intelligence comes with strong privacy protections and that most AI processing happens on-device. The new Private Cloud Compute infrastructure handles the privacy of the data that needs to be processed in the cloud. For ChatGPT interactions, users will have to manually agree to send data to OpenAI’s servers.

Apple Intelligence privacy

In their interview, the Apple execs further detailed how privacy protections work in Apple Intelligence. They told Edwards that the Semantic Index handles personal data on your devices to understand your context. That data is encrypted locally and not synced to the cloud or between devices. So, Apple Intelligence answers might differ on iPhone , iPad, and Mac, depending on the local indexes.

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The execs reiterated that Apple never sees data that reaches its servers via the Private Cloud Compute. Third parties can inspect the security and privacy of user data to ensure Apple’s security claims are genuine. Also, Apple deletes whatever data it has to process in the cloud as soon as the user gets their response. Finally, that data is not used to train Apple’s models.

Skinner and Parakilas also said that Apple relies on its own models for everything in Apple Intelligence except for ChatGPT integration.

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Siri gets an AI-powered upgrade in iOS 18. Image source: Apple Inc.

I think OpenAI’s chatbot will be a key part of Apple Intelligence until Apple can replace it with something of its own. ChatGPT should be able to answer more complex queries than Siri. I’ll remind you the chatbot won’t always get things right, and you might want to verify its claims.

That said, Skinner reiterated that iOS 18 users will be in control of the data they send to OpenAI. They must agree to do it before prompts hit OpenAI’s servers.

ChatGPT privacy in iOS 18

“We think there’s really strong privacy promises that are part of this integration. And so the data that is sent to ChatGPT is not stored by OpenAI, it’s not used to train their models, and it doesn’t require anyone to sign in.” Skinner said. “I think those are all key, plus we also obscure IP addresses. And so that prevents the linkage of multiple different sessions with ChatGPT to be linked together.”

From the moment I started using ChatGPT on the web, I tried to make the most of the evolving privacy features that OpenAI offered. I was careful what information I provided the chatbot, and I tried to opt out of having any of my data be used to train the model. I have to trust OpenAI with that.

But Apple Intelligence might give me another layer of privacy on top of the privacy protections in my ChatGPT account.

Siri will pass information to ChatGPT with your permission. Image source: Apple Inc.

This brings me to a different quote from Apple’s Sandy Parakilas. Later in the exchange, he said that you can link your ChatGPT account to Apple Intelligence if you want to. “In that case, you are logged into your ChatGPT account, and you’re sort of under the auspices of their privacy policies,” he said.

From the sounds of it, you get the best privacy protections if you use ChatGPT without an account in Apple Intelligence. This tells me I might not want to sign into my ChatGPT account within Apple Intelligence once it’s available in iOS 18. I’d benefit from better privacy for most ChatGPT prompts that way.

However, for the prompts I want to save in my ChatGPT account, I could use the standalone ChatGPT app for iPhone and iPad. The Plus subscription would give me access to the latest ChatGPT features and models.

We’re still in the very early days of Apple Intelligence and ChatGPT integration. Not to mention that I won’t get access to them anytime soon. Apple will delay the rollout of Apple Intelligence in the EU for quite a while.

That said, the full interview about Apple’s privacy protections is available below:

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