What Your AI Knows About You: A Guide to Limit It

By Tom | November 1, 2025

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I had an interesting minute the other day. My music app, that uses some clever AI, played me a playlist that could have been lifted directly from my teenage years (including some obscure albums that I had completely forgotten!). Pretty cool, but also unsettling. Then I started to wonder: how does it know me so well?

This got me thinking; and because I had a few minutes on my hands I fell down the rabbit hole And what I discovered was this: the AIs that pervade our lives are constantly learning, creating a ‘digital twin’ of ourselves based on our data. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because the results can be stunning conveniences. But it also means that we need to become aware of the fact that our AI digital footprint is greater than ever.

In this article, I want to walk you through what I have learned about what the AI knows about you, the dangers and the benefits of having that data out there, and most importantly the real steps and AI privacy tools you can use to take that control back.

How does AI learn such a lot anyway?

Ultimately, AI is a learn by data systems. The more data you feed to them the more intelligent they become. Our digital lives provide two major types of food for these things:

• Provided data: This is the information that we consciously give out. It's our name when we sign up for a service, the queries we put on ChatGPT, or the documents we upload to an AI editor.
• Observed Data: This is the trail of digital crumbs we leave. It is our browsing history, our location with a map program, what we purchase online, and even how long we linger on a video before scrolling through.

AI algorithms put this together to make an astonishingly accurate profile of our habits, interests and preferences.

The Double-edged Sword of Data-hungry AI

Let's be honest, its benefits are amazing. I, for one, love the hyper-personalization that saves me time, the efficiency of an AI assistant managing my calendar and the peace of mind that comes with security systems alerting me when suspicious activity is happening on my accounts. Companies are using this data to make better products, which is to everyone's benefit.

But the drawbacks are large. The sheer volume of data collection can be invasive. There is the danger of algorithmic bias, where AI models provide unfair stereotypes, and the "black box" problem, where we don't know how exactly an AI arrived at a conclusion.

A Word of Warning: The Privacy Problems of AI Companions

It is here where the problems are the greatest and the most serious, with the burgeoning popularity of AI companions - "girlfriend" apps. These applications are designed to elicit emotional bonds, encouraging users to share their deepest thoughts and even their secrets and vulnerabilities. When I started my research on the trending issue of AI companion app privacy, I found genuinely shocking information. In a recent analysis conducted by the Mozilla Foundation, researchers found that 90% of the romance chatbots they studied could sell or share user data that they collect. More than half of the chatbots don’t even provide you with a means to delete data they collect. I was amazed to learn that the romance AI, Romantic AI, had 24,000 trackers in a single minute of use! This does not represent a theoretical danger, as recently a data breach in August of this year exposed over 43 million intimate messages of users of two such programs. Whether you're exploring options like SecretDesires, ourdream.ai, HeraHaven, Joi, or Lovescape, it's crucial to be aware of their data policies.

Even the apps that seem to be more responsible have fine print that is worth reading. Nomi.ai has a note that tells us the programmers may take anonymous content to train their AI and Candy.ai reminds us that while the messages are private, they may be examined manually if harm is to come about as a result of the content in them. This level of data access is common across many platforms, including Kupid.ai and Sweetdream.ai. Here we see an important point: when the AI is supposed to convince you to allow yourself to be vulnerable, you have to be very careful with the handling of your data.

How do you get back control? Your guide to an AI privacy audit.

The good news is that we are not defenseless. After I got over my shock, I began to think of ways that I could manage AI privacy. It begins with looking into the settings of the tool that you use each day.

Your first line of defense: AI privacy settings

Most services now offer various controls to arrange for your data. Here is a quick comparison of the various AI assistants to get you started.

How To Secure Your AI Privacy in 5 Steps

Taking control of your data need not be overwhelming. Follow this simple checklist to curb data collection across your AI tools and services.

1. Never Share Sensitive Data
   Think of public AI chatbots like a public forum. This is the golden rule. Never input financial information, home addresses, social security numbers or confidential work information.
2. Actively Opt-Out from Data Training
   Train yourself to immediately locate the "Data Controls" or "Privacy Settings" in any new AI tool you employ. Turn off any and all choices you can find allowing your data to be used for model training.
3. Purge Your History Regularly
   Make yourself a reoccurring reminder (say monthly) to go into your AI activity logs for services like Gemini or ChatGPT and purge your prior conversations. This will also limit how much historical data is being preserved in your account.
4. Use a "Burner" Account
   Create a completely different, anonymous e-mail address that you only use to sign up for AI services. This will help companies not easily tie your AI activity to your main, personal accounts, like your main e-mail or social media accounts.
5. Look at App Permissions
   On your phone, check regularly what permissions your AI-powered apps have. Click on Settings > Apps and check out each one. An AI image generator has no business having access to your contacts or microphone, so access should be revoked on those unneeded items.

The Next Step: AI Privacy Audit Tools

While manual settings are a wonderful place to start, a new breed of AI Privacy Tools are exploding onto the scene. For businesses, different services like OneTrust and IBM watsonx.governance are helping them manage their AI risks and comply with regulations.

For us common folk using these services, the market is still young with many players emerging constantly, but we can utilize also existing tools to get a much clearer picture.

• Privacy Dashboards: Google's Privacy Dashboard offers a chronology of your activity which can be eye-opening at times, but also a great place to delete old or out-of-date data. Privacy dashboards are available from Microsoft and other tech giants also in their ecosystems.
• Portability Requests: Laws like GDPR and CCPA allow people to request a copy of their data. Looking through that information can give you an exact idea of what an AI has stored about you.

A Preview Of A More Private Future

I am hopeful looking ahead. There is a strong push for more government regulation and the development of amazing Privacy-Enhancing technologies (PETs) like Federated Learning that allow AI models to be trained without your raw data ever leaving your device.

In the end we will want transparency and control as we become more knowledgeable. The relationship between us and our AI is a fluid one, shaping the future of AI companions. The goal is not to give up these incredibly powerful tools but to use them wisely, safely and on our own terms. By taking a few proactive steps we can ensure that we remain in control of our digital selves.