Microsoft Copilot

Is Microsoft Copilot safe?

For homework, drafting emails and general questions, Copilot is a reasonable risk, about level with ChatGPT. Since its new app arrived on 18 August 2026, Microsoft says it no longer uses your prompts, answers or uploaded files to train its foundation models, which puts it ahead of most rivals on that point. The catch is advertising. Copilot is part of Microsoft's ad business, its App Store label admits tracking, and the ads you see can be personalised with your conversations. We score it 58/100.

What Microsoft collects

Apple's privacy label for the Copilot app lists identifiers as data used to track you across other companies' apps and websites. Usage data, coarse location and identifiers are linked to you for third-party advertising. For app features, Microsoft also links your name, email, phone number, contacts and the content you type or upload.

Ads are the part people miss. Copilot shows sponsored results, and when the "Allow ads personalization" setting is on, Microsoft says personalised ads "might use your chat history, saved memories, and other Microsoft data". Your Copilot chats can also shape what you see on Bing, Edge and MSN through a "shared experiences" setting. Turn ad personalisation off and the ads are chosen only from the conversation in front of you. Under-18s never get personalised ads.

On training, there are two versions of the rules. In the older Copilot app, Microsoft trained models on signed-in adults' conversations by default, with an opt-out, and kept chats for 18 months. The new app's privacy pages say chats "aren't used to train foundation models". If your app has not updated, the old rules still apply.

Security: one flaw at home, one at work

Copilot chats are encrypted in transit and at rest, but not end to end, so Microsoft can access them. Microsoft accounts support strong sign-in options, and Copilot inherits them.

The consumer app's worst known flaw is CoSnitch (CVE-2026-24301, rated 8.8 out of 10). A crafted link could run hidden prompts inside your signed-in Copilot session and pull out chat history, memories and data from services you had connected to Copilot. Varonis Threat Labs reported it in December 2025, and Microsoft shipped the fix on 18 August 2026, about eight months later. No exploitation in the wild was reported. The slow fix is the main reason security scores 60.

EchoLeak (CVE-2025-32711, rated 9.3), disclosed in June 2025, was a zero-click flaw that could leak data through a crafted email. It affected Microsoft 365 Copilot, the business product used with work accounts, not the free consumer app. Microsoft fixed it on the server side.

Regulators are looking at pricing, not privacy

We found no privacy fine or data protection order against Copilot. The open cases are about how Microsoft sold it. On 27 October 2025 Australia's competition regulator, the ACCC, took Microsoft to the Federal Court, alleging it misled about 2.7 million Australian Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers by not telling them clearly about cheaper "Classic" plans without Copilot. On 29 July 2026 the UK's Competition and Markets Authority opened a similar consumer investigation; it says it has reached no conclusions. Neither case has a finding yet.

The Windows Recall feature, which takes regular snapshots of your screen, belongs to Windows 11 on Copilot+ PCs and is not part of the Copilot app. It is a separate decision on those computers.

Children and harmful answers

Users must be at least 13, older in some countries. Microsoft says teens get extra filters, and parents can switch off features such as image generation, voice mode, group chat and AI companions. When Copilot detects signs of suicide or self-harm it stops the conversation and points to crisis lines such as 988 in the US. We found no lawsuits claiming Copilot harmed a user, unlike ChatGPT. The everyday risk is the usual one for chatbots: confident, wrong answers about medicine, law or money.

Settings worth changing

1. Update to the new Copilot app so the no-training rule applies to you.
2. Settings > Personalization: turn off "Allow ads personalization", and turn off shared experiences if you do not want chats shaping Bing and MSN.
3. In the same menu, review what Copilot remembers and delete anything sensitive.
4. Be careful with Copilot links from strangers. CoSnitch showed a single click can be enough.
5. Disconnect services such as Gmail or Drive that you do not need Copilot to read.

How we scored it

Transparency and control (66) is Copilot's strongest factor, with clear deletion, export and ad settings. Privacy (48) is held down by ad tracking and the use of chat history for ads, not by training. Security (60) reflects the eight-month wait for the CoSnitch fix. Claude tracks less but trains on chats unless you opt out; Copilot does the opposite.