At Radboud University, the AI assistant Copilot Chat is available: an AI assistant that prioritises data security. We therefore request that staff and students who wish to use AI choose Copilot Chat. The use of free tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini is not recommended, as it poses various privacy and security risks. The data you enter is used to further train the tool. Sensitive or personal information, such as company data or private conversations, thus becomes accessible for the service provider (such as OpenAI or Google).
In addition, we advise that you do not input sensitive or critical business information or personal data when using AI. In any case, do not share personal data without consent. Both staff and students are expected to follow the current agreements within their faculty or study programme on the use of generative AI at all times.
Copilot Chat (formerly Bing Chat)
The Microsoft Copilot Chat feature can be accessed by anyone via https://copilot.cloud.microsoft and is embedded in the Edge browser by default. Copilot Chat is based on the language model of OpenAI (developer of ChatGPT) and is therefore a good alternative to the paid version of ChatGPT in many cases.
If you log in with your Radboud account, the use of Copilot Chat falls under our Microsoft licence and is therefore covered by the business data protection offered by Microsoft. This is shown by the green shield and means, among other things, that your data will not be used to train Microsoft's AI model. Despite this protection, there are also objections to using Copilot Chat that are typical of generative AI, such as response bias and high energy consumption.
SURF's advice on Microsoft 365 Copilot
Do not confuse Copilot Chat with Microsoft 365 Copilot; Microsoft 365 Copilot is a generative AI application that searches the data of all Office applications for the answer to your question. This is not what Copilot Chat does. SURF recently advised all education and research institutions not to use Microsoft 365 Copilot for the time being, mainly because of privacy risks. This advice is based on the Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) that was conducted. Microsoft 365 Copilot cannot be used for free and Radboud University does not (yet) offer it, in line with SURF's advice.
Conditions of use for generative AI at the university
As generative AI is developing at high speed, Radboud University would like to take a cautious approach. Not by banning the use of AI, but by analysing its risks to privacy and information security. This is also legally expected of the university in accordance with the EU AI Act. The aim of this analysis is for staff and students to be able to continue using AI, with as few restrictions as possible, but within the legal frameworks. A campus-wide policy on the use of AI tools is currently being drafted.