Use of Adobe’s AI Assistant with any WashU Confidential or Protected Information, including both Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Protected Health Information (PHI), is not permitted. Due to data retention and use policies of the Adobe AI feature, WashU IT will begin disabling its use on our systems starting next week. The impacted applications are Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat Pro, which will continue to function without the AI Assistant feature.
Adobe does not provide a way to partition data collected by its AI Assistant from the other information in its systems. Further, Adobe offers no assurances that it will not retain our data or use it to train its Large Language Models (LLMs). As a result, no one at WashU should use the Adobe AI capability for any Confidential or Protected Information, including PII and PHI.
Non-AI Assistant use of Adobe desktop products keeps the data local to your computer, which is permitted. However, the Adobe AI Assistant transmits information to Adobe and is therefore prohibited for use with Confidential and Protected Information such as PII and PHI.
This restriction applies to both paid subscriptions and free trials.
WashU IT will begin disabling the Adobe AI Assistant on October 28 and continue the process in phases through the first three weeks of November.
To learn more about data classification, please visit:
For more information about using generative artificial intelligence at WashU, please visit:
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