Means assessment emails and AI data leakage: what liaising with Services Australia gives away in ChatGPT or Claude.

Providers spend hours liaising with Services Australia about means assessments, and the emails are tedious enough that staff want ChatGPT or Claude to draft them. Each one carries a resident’s complete financial position, their Centrelink identifiers, and often the family circumstances behind a dispute. This page marks every item in a routine assessment query that the Aged Care Act 2024 and the Privacy Act protect, and shows how the same email is drafted on Ermos inside the service.

The email to Services Australia

Sent by admissions or finance staff when an assessment is delayed, disputed or needs updating after a change in the resident’s circumstances.

To: Services Australia, Aged Care Means Assessment
From: Priya Desai, Admissions and Finance, Kurrajong Gardens Aged Care (provider ID 12345)⁸
Subject: Review of means-tested care fee, BAXTER Harold, CRN 123 456 789A¹

We write on behalf of the above resident, with the authority of his attorney, to request a review of the means-tested care fee assessed on 19 August 2026.

The assessment treats the former home at 18 Coral Crescent, Dee Why, as an assessable asset at $1,280,000. The home has now been sold for $1,180,000, settling 14 November 2026. We attach the contract.²
The assessment includes a defined benefit pension of $41,600 per year. Mr Baxter’s attorney advises that $9,200 of this is a reversionary component that will cease, as Mr Baxter’s wife, who was the original member, died in June. A copy of the death certificate is attached.³
The assessment does not reflect that Mr Baxter’s daughter, Linda Baxter, lived in the former home as a carer for the two years before his admission and may be a protected person. Her Centrelink reference is 987 654 321B. She has been receiving Carer Payment.⁴
We also note that $45,000 was gifted by Mr Baxter to his son in May 2025. The attorney has asked whether this will be treated as a deprived asset; we have advised him to seek his own financial advice.⁵

Mr Baxter has vascular dementia and is not able to engage with this process. All correspondence should be directed to his attorney, Graham Baxter, copied to us.⁶

Until the review is complete, we are charging the means-tested care fee as assessed, which the family has indicated they are struggling to meet alongside the daily accommodation payment.⁷

Priya Desai⁸

An invented email. Reference numbers are placeholders. Hover or tap any highlighted item for the analysis; the full list is below.

What leaves the service

The resident and his Centrelink reference

A name and a Customer Reference Number, the identifier for every government payment he receives. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A Centrelink reference transmitted, generally offshore on personal plans
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

The former home and its sale

An address, a valuation, a sale price and a settlement date. Financial information, and the facts a fraud needs. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A property sale transmitted; on consumer tiers it can train future models
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

A pension and a death

His income, and the recent death of his wife, with a death certificate attached. Personal information about two people, one of whom has died. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A pension and a death certificate transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

A daughter, her benefits and her Centrelink reference

A third person’s government identifier and the fact that she receives a carer payment. Her personal information, disclosed to make her father’s case. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A third person’s Centrelink reference transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

A gift to a son and the advice given

A family transfer that may be a deprived asset, and the provider’s careful non-advice about it. The son’s personal information too. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A family transfer and the son’s details transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

Capacity and the attorney

His diagnosis, and who speaks for him. Health information in a financial email. Patient data guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A dementia diagnosis transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

The family’s financial difficulty

That the family is struggling to pay. The provider’s knowledge of a family’s circumstances, which it holds for one purpose. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A family’s financial difficulty transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

The staff member and the provider ID

Ties the email to the person and the service responsible.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Transmitted, and the leak is traceable to you
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

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 service 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 resident’s record. 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 Edge	Ermos Dominion
Where the document is processed	Provider servers, generally offshore on personal plans	Your instance in an Australian data centre; answers generated in Australia	The unit in your office
Who can read it	Provider staff and systems, under policy	Your staff, within the boundaries you set. The named Australian provider processes only permitted excerpts, under contract, and keeps nothing	Your staff only
Is it kept	On the provider’s terms	Kept on your instance; the provider is barred from retaining it	Stays on the unit
Can it train a model	On consumer tiers, yes	No, by contract	Only your own unit learns from it, on your hardware

Part of AI data leakage in aged care providers.

Common questions

Do ChatGPT and Claude use the information in a means assessment email to Services Australia?

Yes, a pasted email is sent to the AI company and processed there to produce the reply. 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. It carries the resident's Centrelink reference, the sale of the family home and a daughter's Carer Payment.

Can we use ChatGPT or Claude for a means assessment email if we remove the names?

No, because every reference and figure in the email belongs to an identifiable person. 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 Customer Reference Number identifies a person across every government payment, and a sale price, a settlement date and a wife's death in June point to one household. 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 a means assessment email later?

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). For this email, that could carry a resident's Centrelink reference, the sale price of the family home and a gift to a son into later conversations on the same account. A daughter's Carer Payment and a wife's death in June are further personal details that could be carried the same way.

How can an aged care service use AI for a means assessment email 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. The email is drafted from the resident agreement, the assessment letters and the attorney's instructions, using the service's earlier correspondence as the template. The finance officer checks every figure before signing and sending it.

The email is going to a government agency. Why is the draft different?

Services Australia is the agency the law requires the information to go to, bound by its own privacy obligations. A frontier model provider is a company with servers, for the major ones outside Australia, retaining the draft on its own terms. The resident, his late wife, his daughter and his son are all identified in it.

Is the daughter's Centrelink reference the provider's to disclose?

It is her personal information, held by the provider only because it bears on her father's assessment. Disclosure to Services Australia for that purpose is defensible. Disclosure to a frontier model to draft the email is a separate use that nobody authorised.

How is assessment correspondence drafted on Ermos?

From the resident's agreement, the assessment letters and the attorney's instructions on your own unit, using the service's previous correspondence as the template. The email is the same; the family's circumstances never leave the building to write it.

See Dominion answering from your own documents.

A demonstration takes 30 minutes, uses no client data, and comes with no obligation.

Book a demo

Keep reading

AI data leakage in aged care providers AI for healthcare AI and patient data All professions