Confidentiality when uploading site documents to a tool

Before any client material goes into a drafting tool, three questions decide what you can send: is there personal data in it, is there commercially sensitive material in it, and would the document end up on the council's website anyway. The third question resolves more cases than practitioners expect. Most of an application pack becomes public on the statutory register within weeks of validation, so the confidentiality concern attaches to a narrow set of documents rather than the whole file.

The narrow set is the one that needs a written rule, because that is where a practice gets into difficulty.

What is sensitive in a typical application pack

Work through a file and the categories separate quickly.

Material that will be published anyway: the application form, drawings, the design and access statement, technical assessments, the planning statement. Uploading these to produce a first draft raises no confidentiality issue the submission itself does not already raise.

Material that stays private: heads of terms under negotiation, an option or promotion agreement, correspondence about land assembly, internal fee and programme information, and the client's own instructions about their commercial position.

Material with personal data in it: cover letters, ownership certificates naming third parties, medical or personal-circumstance letters supporting a case, neighbour correspondence, and anything with a signature block.

Material with a wider interest attached: a site plan showing a landowner's whole holding rather than the application site, which tells a reader something about intentions that the application does not.

That second and fourth category are the ones to keep out of a tool by default.

Commercially sensitive viability material

Viability is the awkward case, because national policy has moved towards openness. The Planning Practice Guidance on viability proceeds on the basis that assessments will be made publicly available other than in exceptional circumstances, and councils publish them routinely. A consultant who treats an appraisal as inherently confidential is working to an older convention.

That does not make every input publishable. Land acquisition figures under negotiation, funder terms and build cost tenders that identify a contractor are the parts most often withheld, and the mechanism is a request under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 exception for commercial confidentiality rather than a private agreement with the officer.

Practically, that means a two-version approach: the appraisal as it will be published, and the sensitive annexes handled separately. Only the publishable version needs to go anywhere near a drafting tool, and the narrative around it is what a tool is useful for in any case. A Viability Assessment drafted from the publishable figures still needs the appraisal model built and signed by someone competent, and councils usually expect a suitably qualified author for that work.

Personal data and your position as a controller

Where a document contains personal data, your practice is a controller under the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK data protection regime, and a third-party service processing that data on your instructions is a processor. The regime requires a written contract governing that relationship, covering the subject matter and duration of the processing, the obligations and rights of the controller, security, sub-processing and deletion.

So the question is not whether a tool is trustworthy. It is whether the contractual arrangement you have with the provider covers processing personal data on your behalf, and whether you can point to it when a client or the Information Commissioner's Office asks.

Two consequences follow for a small practice. First, the decision to adopt a tool for work involving personal data is a practice-level decision, not one for an individual planner on a deadline. Second, the simplest compliant route for most householder and minor work is to strip the personal data before upload, because a redacted document takes the question away entirely.

Checking a provider's current published policies

Terms and privacy documentation changes, and what a provider published a year ago is not what governs your use today. Read the current published policies of any tool before uploading confidential material, and check them again when your practice renews. If a policy you need is not published, treat that as a reason to keep client-confidential material out of the tool rather than a reason to assume.

Keep a dated copy of what you read. If a client later asks what your basis was for sending their material to a third party, a note recording which policies you checked and on what date is worth more than a recollection.

Redaction before upload

Redaction is the least glamorous control and the most effective. A practical sequence:

1. Copy the document rather than editing the original, and name the copy so nobody submits it by mistake.
2. Remove names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and signatures of anyone other than the applicant.
3. Remove medical and personal-circumstance detail, replacing it with a neutral description of the need the design responds to.
4. Remove figures under negotiation, and replace them with a placeholder you will fill in from your own model.
5. Flatten the file so removed content is not recoverable from the document properties or a text layer.
6. Check the metadata, because author names, file paths and earlier revisions travel with a document.

Step five catches people out. A black rectangle drawn over text in a PDF hides nothing from a text extraction tool.

A practice policy worth writing down

One page, agreed once, saves a great deal of case-by-case judgement:

• The list of tools approved for use, and who approves additions.
• Categories of material that may never be uploaded, named specifically.
• The redaction standard, with a named person responsible for checking.
• How the practice records what was uploaded, by whom and when.
• The wording used in client appointments to disclose the use of AI-assisted drafting.
• Who reviews and signs off the output, and against what checklist.

That last point connects back to professional conduct rather than data protection. A drafted document submitted under your practice's name is your work, and questions about authorship do arise, as the position on when a council asks who wrote your report sets out. The internal check is where the two duties meet, and a standing internal review checklist is the mechanism. Reviewing for factual errors in a drafted document is part of the same discipline.

What to tell a client before uploading

Say it plainly, in writing, in the appointment or in a short email: that you use AI-assisted drafting for first drafts, that a qualified planner reviews and takes responsibility for everything submitted, what categories of their material you will and will not put into the tool, and that the application documents become public on the council's register in any event.

Most clients are untroubled by this and some prefer it, because it is a cost conversation as much as a technology one. The clients who care are usually those with a live land assembly or a commercial position to protect, and they will tell you exactly which documents are off limits if you ask.

Ask at the outset. Retrofitting consent after a document has been uploaded is a much worse conversation.

PlanScope produces AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required. Check PlanScope's current published policies before uploading confidential material. See PlanScope pricing if you are weighing the Professional tier against per-report use for a practice. This is general guidance, not legal advice; take your own advice on data protection and professional conduct obligations before relying on it.