Title search summaries and AI confidentiality: what a conveyancer’s title note gives away in ChatGPT or Claude.

A title search tells a conveyancer who owns the land, who has lent against it and what binds it, and the summary the practice writes from it is a document staff often paste into ChatGPT or Claude to turn a dense register extract into plain English. The register itself comes from the land registry, but the summary adds what the registry does not hold: which client is buying, what the practice has noticed and what the vendor is going through. This page marks every item in a routine summary for a NSW strata lot that bears on conveyancing, AML/CTF and privacy obligations, and shows the same summary prepared on Ermos.

The title search summary

Prepared when the contract arrives and updated before settlement, so the conveyancer can confirm who is selling, what has to be discharged and whether anything on the register affects the buyers.

An invented title search summary. The folio identifier and dealing number are placeholders. Hover or tap any highlighted item for the analysis; the full list is below.

What leaves the practice

1. 1
   The folio and the property

   Ties the document to a specific lot. Title information comes from the land registry, so the folio is not secret, but the link between this lot, this practice and these buyers is.

2. 2
   The registered proprietor

   The vendor’s name beside his address and the fact that he is selling. Personal information about a person who is not the practice’s client. Privacy Act guide.

3. 3
   The mortgagee and the dealing number

   Which bank has lent against the property and the reference of its mortgage. Financial information about the vendor, and the document a payout letter will refer to. Privacy Act guide.

4. 4
   The death notation

   That a joint proprietor has died and survivorship has been applied. A bereavement attached to a named living person and an address. Privacy Act guide.

5. 5
   The strata plan and unit entitlement

   Details of the lot as it appears in the contract pack every buyer receives. Information on its own that identifies no one.

6. 6
   The previous sale and price

   What the vendor paid in 2011. Financial history of the vendor, from which the gain on a sale can be inferred. Privacy Act guide.

7. 7
   The practice’s reading of the register

   That the register is clear. AUSTRAC describes the regulated service as assisting in the planning or execution of a transaction to sell, buy or transfer real estate, and whether reading the register is part of that service is for the practice’s own program to decide. The clients rely on the practice’s reading, and a model’s reading is no substitute for it.

8. 8
   The practice’s note about the vendor

   A comment on the vendor’s circumstances and wishes, and the name of his solicitor. A confidence passed in the course of the matter, and nothing in the title needs it. Privacy Act 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 practice no longer controls it. Retention and deletion happen on the provider’s terms.

The same document on Ermos

Part of AI data leakage in conveyancing practices.

Common questions