Can I Paste User Interviews into ChatGPT? A Guide to GDPR and LLMs
Every product manager wants to ask an LLM about their user feedback. But pasting customer transcripts into public models is a GDPR nightmare. Here is the checklist for safe AI analysis.
Koji Team
January 26, 2026
The "Copy-Paste" Trap
It is the most tempting workflow in 2026: take a transcript from a user interview, paste it into an LLM, and ask, "What were the main pain points?"
If you are in Europe, you likely just broke the law.
Standard LLMs (like the free versions of ChatGPT or Claude) often retain input data for training. If that transcript contained a name, an email, or even a recognizable anecdote, you have processed PII (Personally Identifiable Information) on non-compliant servers without consent.
What to Look For When Conversing with an LLM
If you want the value of AI analysis without the legal risk, you need a tool that guarantees three things:
1. Zero-Retention Policy
Ensure the vendor has a "Zero-Retention" agreement with their model provider. This means the LLM processes the text and forgets it immediately. It never enters the training set.
2. EU-Resident Servers
Data residency matters. For strict compliance, the model inference should happen on servers physically located within the EU (e.g., AWS Frankfurt or Azure Ireland), preventing data from crossing the Atlantic.
3. Automatic PII Redaction
Before the data even hits the LLM, it should be scrubbed. Tools like Koji automatically detect and hash names ("John" → "User_A") and emails before sending the prompt.
The Safe Workflow
You don't need to stop using AI. You just need to stop using public AI for private data.
Koji was built for this specific EU nuance. We act as the "airlock" between your users and the intelligence models.
- We record the interview.
- We redact PII locally.
- We send anonymized chunks to enterprise-tier, zero-retention models in Europe.
- You get the insights. The model learns nothing.
FAQ
Q: Does Koji use my data to train its models? A: No. Your user data is yours. We do not train on customer data.
Q: Is it safe to summarize interviews if I change the names myself? A: Risky. "Quasi-identifiers" (like a job title + city) can still re-identify a user. Automated redaction is safer.