Apple employees asked to ban the use of ChatGPT

Related: ChatGPT is now available for download on the iOS App Store

On the same day that Apple launched its first official ChatGPT app on its iOS App Store, the company told employees that they were not allowed to use the AI chatbot due to concerns about security breaches.

Sources said Apple has restricted all of their employees from using ChatGPT, which includes any other ChatGPT imitators or external AI programs that have entered the market since Microsoft-backed OpenAI launched its prodigy chatbot last November.

Apple, which is currently developing its own AI technology to compete with ChatGPT, may be concerned that employees could accidentally (or intentionally) leak sensitive intellectual data via AI tools.

According to an internal report first seen by the Wall Street Journal on May 18, the company also restricts Apple employees from using Copilot, a Microsoft-owned GitHub, to automate software code.

Privacy groups have been increasingly scrutinizing how ChatGPT stores and handles its users' chat history and data.

Last month, it was reported that Samsung employees inadvertently leaked sensitive company data while interacting with ChatGPT on three different occasions. The confidential data allegedly included proprietary Samsung source code belonging to Samsung Analytics Semiconductor software.

The leak comes less than two weeks after Samsung decided to revoke its ban on ChatGPT, which was initially put in place to avoid confidential leaks. The leak prompted Samsung to ban employees from continuing to use all AI-generating platforms.

OpenAI came under fire for collecting large amounts of data and using it to train AI big language models without explicit user permission.

In response, the company integrated a more transparent privacy policy into ChatGPT in April, including an "incognito mode" that allows users to opt out of having their data used to improve AI chatbots.

The ChatGPT app for iOS, released in partnership with Apple and OpenAI, claims it will provide users with the same features as the desktop version of ChatGPT. It is uncertain whether the app will also offer users an incognito mode option.