# Privacy, Secrets and Responsible Use — Prompt Engineering

Source: https://www.geekswithgeeks.com/en/prompt-engineering/y-privacy

> Keep personal and confidential data out of prompts unless allowed.

## Prompts are data you share

Everything in a prompt is sent to the model provider and may be logged. Do not include **passwords, API keys, tokens or private keys**; **redact or pseudonymise personal data** (names, phone numbers, IDs) when the task does not need it; check your provider's data-retention and training policies and your legal obligations (for example privacy laws and customer contracts); and restrict who can see prompt logs. Keep a human responsible for high-stakes outputs (medical, legal, financial, hiring), disclose when users are talking to an AI, and test for biased or unfair behaviour across groups and languages.

## Redact before you send

Replace names, phone numbers and IDs with placeholders like [NAME] before the prompt leaves your system, and map them back afterwards if needed.

**Quiz:** Which should never be put in a prompt?

- [ ] An example output
- [ ] A style guide
- [ ] A public FAQ
- [x] API keys and passwords

*Answer:* API keys and passwords. Secrets in prompts can leak through logs or model output.