Replying to a member of the public, simplifying a letter, summarising a regulation: AI can do a lot for public servants, provided you never give it anything that identifies the person.
In a town hall, a social services department, a benefits office or a government agency, much of the day is spent writing: replying to someone who does not understand a decision, drafting a briefing note for an elected official, summarising a new regulation, turning an unreadable standard letter into one that anyone can understand. AI can save a considerable amount of time on these tasks.
But public servants handle data that does not belong to them: the data of the people they serve. And many administrations have already reminded their staff not to hand it to consumer tools. Here is how to make the most of AI while staying within the rules.
Public servants are bound by official secrecy and a duty of discretion. In Switzerland, official secrecy is protected by Article 320 of the Swiss Criminal Code; most other countries have equivalent rules for public servants, set out in civil service law and, for the most serious breaches, in criminal law. Everywhere, the personal data of members of the public falls under data protection law: the GDPR in the European Union, the FADP or cantonal data protection law in Switzerland.
On top of that come your administration's own rules: IT policy, internal guidance, list of approved tools. They take precedence. If your employer prohibits all AI tools, the only right course is to raise the need through the proper channels, not to work around the rule.
Plain language. Turning a dense administrative letter into one everyone can read, without losing legal precision: it is one of the most useful tasks, and it requires no personal data at all.
Replying to a member of the public. From a situation described anonymously, AI suggests a structured, polite and easy-to-understand reply, which you then complete with the details from the file.
Summarising texts. A decree, a circular, a fifty-page report: AI picks out the points that concern your department.
Internal notes. Preparing a note for an elected official or senior management from your own material, with a clear structure: background, issues, options, recommendation.
1. Describe the situation, not the person. "A member of the public disputes the amount of housing benefit recalculated after a change in circumstances" is enough to get a good answer. The name, address, tax or social insurance number stay in your case management software; you add them to the final letter.
2. Set your masking rules. In IA Confidential's Privacy panel, you can specify what must always be masked: reference numbers of the people you serve, names of local schemes, case references. It is an extra safeguard on top of your own vigilance.
3. Stay on a confidential model. By default, your questions are processed by open models installed on servers in Switzerland, outside the reach of the CLOUD Act, which pass nothing on to third parties. For a letter or a summary, they are all you need. If you choose an external model, the Confidentiality filter checks the message first: if it finds sensitive data, it offers to answer with a confidential model, with your message unchanged, or to send an anonymised version that you review.
4. Check the texts in force. For a regulatory question, the assistant can run an anonymous web search: the search goes out without identifying you, and the results are dated and sourced. Always check the current version on the official website before relying on it in a reply to a member of the public.
5. Review and sign. AI drafts, the public servant replies. A mistake in an administrative letter commits the department: every amount, every deadline, every reference must be checked.
With a confidential model, your questions and the answers are processed on servers located in Switzerland, and nothing is kept on our side: your history stays in your browser. We could not produce it if asked to, because we do not have it.
With an external model, nothing goes out without passing through the filter, and you are the one who chooses what goes out.
On a shared computer, the history can be read by anyone using the same browser session: use a personal session and close it when you leave. And if you follow the first step, what circulates cannot identify the person in any case.
Rewrite this letter in plain language for someone who is not used to dealing with administrative procedures. Keep all the legal information (deadlines, how to appeal, documents to provide), but use short sentences, one idea per sentence and a list for the documents. End with a sentence saying who to contact with any questions.
Then paste the standard letter, without the person's data.
For the habits that apply to every profession, read our guide to using AI at work safely. The legal professions have their own method too: see the guide for lawyers.
To try it on a standard letter: open the chat.
