Resident agreements and AI confidentiality: what an admission contract gives away in ChatGPT or Claude.

The resident agreement is where aged care becomes financial. It records how much the resident is paying to live in the home, how it is being paid, what Services Australia has assessed them as able to afford, and who signs for them. Admissions staff paste it into ChatGPT or Claude to explain it to families in plain words. This page marks every item in a standard agreement that the Aged Care Act 2024 and the Privacy Act protect, and shows how the same explanation is produced on Ermos inside the service.

The resident agreement

Signed on or soon after admission by the resident or their representative, and varied when fees or the accommodation arrangement change.

Residential care agreement: schedule of fees
Kurrajong Gardens Aged Care · Commencement 3 September 2026

Resident. Harold James Baxter, DOB 11 January 1947, My Aged Care ID AC12345679¹. Representative. Graham Baxter (son), attorney under enduring power of attorney dated 4 March 2025, 7 Lagoon Street, Narrabeen².

Accommodation. Single room with ensuite, Wattle wing, Room 9A. Agreed room price $650,000. The resident has elected to pay a refundable accommodation deposit of $400,000 and a daily accommodation payment on the balance of $250,000 at the maximum permissible interest rate, currently $57.53 per day.³

Daily fees. Basic daily fee $63.82. Means-tested care fee as assessed by Services Australia: $31.14 per day, subject to the annual and lifetime caps. Additional services package (newspaper, wine with dinner, hairdressing): $18.00 per day.⁴

Means assessment. Services Australia assessment dated 19 August 2026 attached. Assessable assets $1,214,000, including the former home at 18 Coral Crescent, Dee Why, which is to be sold. Assessable income $48,200 per year, comprising the age pension (part) and a defined benefit pension from the NSW Teachers’ scheme.⁵

Payment of the RAD. The RAD is to be paid within six months of entry from the proceeds of sale of the former home. Until paid, daily accommodation payments accrue on the unpaid balance. The resident’s representative has advised that the sale is contracted for $1,180,000 with settlement on 14 November 2026.⁶

Capacity. The resident has a diagnosis of vascular dementia. The provider is satisfied on the basis of the attorney’s authority that this agreement may be entered into by the representative.⁷

Signed for the provider: Lorraine Keane, Facility Manager⁸.

An invented agreement. Figures are illustrative. Hover or tap any highlighted item for the analysis; the full list is below.

What leaves the service

The resident and his identifiers

Name, date of birth and My Aged Care ID. Personal information the Act requires the provider to protect. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Transmitted to the provider, 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 attorney and his address

A named family member, his legal authority and his home address. His personal information, and the fact that he controls his father’s money. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	The attorney’s details and authority 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 accommodation payment

How much the resident is paying and how. Financial information about a person with dementia. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	The accommodation payment 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

Daily fees and the means-tested fee

The government’s assessment of what he can afford, which reveals his means. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	The means-tested fee 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 means assessment: assets, a home and a pension

His total assets, the address of his former home, and his income sources. A complete financial picture of an elderly man, with the address of a house about to be sold. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A complete financial picture, with a home address, 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 property sale

The contracted price and the settlement date for his home. Price-sensitive, and the facts a payment redirection fraud needs. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A property sale and settlement date 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

His diagnosis and the provider’s assessment that he cannot sign for himself. Health information, in a financial document. Patient data guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A dementia diagnosis transmitted in a financial document
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 manager

Ties the agreement to the responsible person.

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 resident agreement?

Yes, a pasted agreement 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 puts the accommodation payment, the means assessment and the sale of the family home in one paste.

Can we use ChatGPT or Claude for a resident agreement if we remove the names?

Not safely, because the figures describe one resident's finances even without a 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. The accommodation payment, a former home sold on a known date, a defined benefit pension and the attorney's street address each point to one family. 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.

Does a ChatGPT Business or Claude Team plan make it safe to use for a resident agreement?

Only partly. A business plan changes the default on training, but it does not change who receives the content. On a personal plan the user cannot choose where conversations are stored or processed. Some business plans let an organisation choose to store data at rest in Australia (OpenAI), which still leaves the content with the AI company. The OAIC's guidance also tells organisations to review carefully the terms and settings that will apply to their use of any AI product. A resident agreement would still send the attorney's authority and address, the accommodation payment and the property sale to the AI company. Those are the facts a payment redirection fraud needs. Our comparisons with ChatGPT Enterprise and Claude weigh the trade-offs.

How can an aged care service use AI for a resident agreement 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 plain-English explanation for the family is drafted from the agreement and the fee schedule in the service's own wording. The facility manager checks every figure against the signed agreement and signs the letter.

Is the financial side of aged care covered by the same obligations?

Yes. Section 168 of the Act covers personal information about the person receiving services, whatever its subject, and the Privacy Act covers financial information as personal information. A resident agreement combines financial, health and family information about a person who often cannot manage any of it himself.

Families want fees explained in plain English. Can AI do that?

It can, and it should, inside the service. On an Ermos unit the agreement and the fee schedule are on your own hardware, and the plain-English explanation is drafted from them. The family receives a clearer letter; the agreement never leaves the building.

Why does the property settlement matter here?

Because a large sum is about to move on a known date to pay a known amount to a known provider. That is the pattern payment redirection fraud targets, and the resident's attorney is the person who would receive the fake email.

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