SMSF statements and AI data leakage: what a member statement gives away in ChatGPT or Claude.

A self-managed super fund statement is a complete picture of a family’s retirement: who the members are, how old they are, what they hold and when they can take it. It is also one of the documents most often pasted into ChatGPT or Claude, usually to explain it to a client in plainer words. This page marks every item in a member statement that AI confidentiality rules and the TFN Rule protect, and shows how the same explanation is drafted on Ermos without the statement leaving the practice.

The SMSF member statement

Prepared with the fund’s annual financial statements and sent to each member after the audit is complete.


Member statement for the year ended 30 June 2026 ·

Member: · Date of birth: · TFN:

Opening balance 1 July 2025
Investment earnings
Closing balance 30 June 2026

Fund assets at 30 June 2026: .

Prepared by .

An invented statement. The TFN and ABN are the ATO’s published example values. Hover or tap any highlighted item for the analysis; the full list is below.

What leaves the firm

  1. 1
    The fund

    Named, with its ABN. The anchor for everything else. APES 110 confidentiality guide.

  2. 2
    The member, his age and date of birth

    An 81-year-old man’s identity and date of birth, the two facts most used in identity fraud, attached to a seven-figure balance. Privacy Act guide.

  3. 3
    A tax file number

    The TFN Rule permits TFN information to be used or disclosed only for authorised tax, superannuation or personal assistance purposes, with access restricted to people who need it. Superannuation administration is such a purpose; a frontier model provider is not such a person. Tax file numbers guide.

  4. 4
    Balances and earnings

    The size of a family’s retirement savings. Confidential financial information under APES 110 R114.2, and the item that makes the member a target. APES 110 confidentiality guide.

  5. 5
    Pension phase and the beneficiaries

    That the member is drawing a pension, how much, and who inherits. Estate planning information about three people, two of whom are not named on the statement’s cover. Privacy Act guide.

  6. 6
    The assets, with an address

    A property address, a related-party tenant and three valuations. Enough to map the family’s wealth and to find the building. APES 110 confidentiality guide.

  7. 7
    A qualified audit opinion

    That the fund’s auditor has raised a related-party issue. A compliance matter that may need reporting to the ATO, on a third party’s servers before the trustees have responded. TPB Code guide.

  8. 8
    The firm

    Ties the statement to the accountants responsible for it. TPB Code guide.

What happens in Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)

  • The whole document is transmitted to the provider’s servers. On personal plans the user cannot choose where it is stored or processed, and for the major providers that has generally meant outside Australia, under that country’s legal process. Some business plans offer storage in Australia, but the provider still receives the content.
  • On consumer tiers, prompts can be retained and used to train future models.
  • The provider’s staff and systems can reach the content under the provider’s own policies.
  • Once sent, the firm no longer controls it. Retention and deletion happen on the provider’s terms.

The same document on Ermos

Ermos Dominion

The document is drafted on a unit in your office, from your own templates and the client file. Every marked item stays on the unit, which keeps working with the internet switched off. Nothing in it is transmitted to an AI provider, so there is no disclosure to analyse: the confidentiality work is the same as for your file server.

Ermos Edge

Your documents, the index and your access boundaries stay on your own instance in an Australian data centre. When a staff member asks for this draft, only their question and the excerpts they are permitted to see go to a named Australian provider, who is contractually barred from keeping the content or training any model on it. Nothing is processed outside Australia.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)Ermos EdgeErmos Dominion
Where the document is processedProvider servers, generally offshore on personal plansYour instance in an Australian data centre; answers generated in AustraliaThe unit in your office
Who can read itProvider staff and systems, under policyYour staff, within the boundaries you set. The named Australian provider processes only permitted excerpts, under contract, and keeps nothingYour staff only
Is it keptOn the provider’s termsKept on your instance; the provider is barred from retaining itStays on the unit
Can it train a modelOn consumer tiers, yesNo, by contractOnly your own unit learns from it, on your hardware

Part of AI data leakage in accounting firms. See how this works in practice: Client letters on Ermos.

Common questions

Do ChatGPT and Claude learn from an SMSF member statement?
It depends on the account the user is on. As at October 2026, whether a conversation on a personal plan (ChatGPT Free, Plus or Pro; Claude Free, Pro or Max) can be used to train the models depends on a setting each user controls. Business plans (ChatGPT Business and Enterprise, Claude Team and Enterprise) and the developer APIs sit under commercial terms, and OpenAI and Anthropic each say they do not train on that content by default (OpenAI, Anthropic). On either product, the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons can send a whole conversation back for training. The statement is also sent to the AI company to be processed. This statement joins a member's date of birth, tax file number and balance.
Is it safe to paste an SMSF member statement into ChatGPT or Claude if we remove the member's name?
Not safely, because the statement still points to one family without the member's name. Removing names rarely makes a document anonymous. Information stays personal information while the person is reasonably identifiable, and the OAIC warns that information can be at risk of re-identification even when it has been de-identified or anonymised. A commercial property at a named address, a related-party tenant, a seven-figure balance and two named beneficiaries narrow the field. The tax file number settles it. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) recommends in its guidance on commercially available AI products that organisations do not enter personal information, and particularly sensitive information, into publicly available generative AI tools, because of the significant and complex privacy risks.
Can ChatGPT or Claude remember the details in an SMSF member statement later?
Yes, they can. Both products also have memory features that can carry details from one conversation into later ones, and on a personal account each user decides whether they are switched on (ChatGPT, Claude). The practice prepares a member statement every year for the same fund. The member's balance, pension amount and death benefit nominations could travel into later chats about that family. A qualified audit opinion on the related-party lease could travel with them before the trustees have responded.
How can an accounting practice use AI for an SMSF member statement without sending it to ChatGPT or Claude?
Ermos is built so the document stays under your control. On the Dominion AI unit it is drafted inside your office and none of it is sent to an AI provider. On Ermos Edge your documents and index stay on your own instance in an Australian data centre, and only the question and the excerpts the user is permitted to see go to a named Australian provider that is contractually barred from keeping them or training any model on them. Ermos drafts the plain-English explanation from the statement and the fund's records, using the practice's own template. The responsible accountant checks every balance and signs it.
Can we use AI to explain an SMSF statement to a client?
That is a good use of it, provided the statement does not leave the practice. On an Ermos unit the explanation is drafted from the statement on your own network. On Edge the statement stays on your instance in Australia and only permitted excerpts go, per question, to a named Australian provider.
Is a member's date of birth really sensitive?
It is personal information under the Privacy Act and one of the standard identity-verification facts. Alongside a name, a TFN and a balance, it is the set a fraudster needs.
What about the qualified audit?
An auditor's qualification can lead to a contravention report to the ATO. Until the trustees have dealt with it, it is confidential information about the fund's affairs, and it is the firm's job to keep it that way.

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