Service agreements and AI confidentiality: what an NDIS service agreement gives away in ChatGPT or Claude.

A service agreement is the document that sets out what the service will do for a participant, when, for how much and what happens if something changes. Services reuse a template, and staff paste the template and the participant’s details into ChatGPT or Claude to fill it in, translate it or make an Easy Read copy. The result carries a young woman’s date of birth, her disability, her family, her weekly routine, her funding and the plan for a bushfire. This page marks every item in a routine NDIS service agreement that the Practice Standards and the Privacy Act bear on, and shows how the same agreement is prepared on Ermos inside the service.

The service agreement

Prepared with the participant and her nominee before supports start. The Service Agreements standard expects the NDIS provider to work with the participant to create an agreement that sets expectations, describes supports and explains conditions, to help her understand it, to give her a signed copy or record why not, and to set out arrangements for supports during an emergency or disaster.

Service Agreement
Brushbox Community Supports and Mei Lin Tran¹ · Signed 28 October 2026

About Mei Lin. Born 14 January 2007. 11 Wattle Street, Belmont. NDIS no. 43X XXX XXX. Plan period 1 March 2026 to 28 February 2027.¹

Who supports Mei Lin to decide. Her mother, Thu Tran, 04xx xxx 000, is her nominee and signs with her. Her father, Hung Tran, is the second contact.²

How we communicate. Mei Lin has Down syndrome. She understands short sentences, uses some Key Word Sign and prefers a picture timetable. She was given an Easy Read copy and Thu went through it with her on 28 October.³

The supports. Community participation, one worker to one participant, Saturdays 9.00am to 3.00pm from 7 November 2026: swimming at the local pool, lunch out and a library visit. The worker meets Mei Lin at home and brings her back.⁴

Funding and invoices. These supports are paid from Mei Lin’s plan, which is plan managed, and we invoice her plan manager monthly. Saturday rate: $96.20 per hour (an invented figure). Budget set aside for these supports: $14,000 for the plan period.⁵

Cancellations. If Mei Lin cancels with less than two clear business days’ notice we may charge for the shift to the extent the NDIS rules allow. If we cancel, we will not charge and will offer another time.⁶

Standard terms. Either of us can end this agreement with 14 days’ written notice. If you are unhappy, tell us and we will follow our complaints process. You can also contact the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission at any time.⁷

Emergencies. In a bushfire, flood or storm warning we will phone Thu first and then Hung, and will not take Mei Lin out of her home area without their agreement. Her medicine is kept by her family; workers do not give medication.⁸

Signed: Mei Lin Tran (with Thu Tran), 28 October 2026. Meena Ramanathan, Service Manager, for Brushbox Community Supports.⁹

An invented agreement. The NDIS number and phone number are placeholders, and the rate is invented and is not an NDIS price limit. Hover or tap any highlighted item for the analysis; the full list is below.

What leaves the service

The participant

A young woman’s name, date of birth, address and NDIS number, and the dates of her plan. Personal information the Information Management standard expects to be kept confidential. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Name, date of birth, address and plan dates 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 nominee and the second contact

Two parents named, with a phone number, and who signs with her. Their personal information, and the arrangement that shows who speaks for her. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Two parents’ 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

Disability and how she communicates

Her diagnosis and how she understands and expresses herself. Health information, which is sensitive information under the Privacy Act. The standard expects the participant to be helped to understand the agreement in a way she can follow. Patient data guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Sensitive health information 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

The schedule and the places

Where she will be, when, and who collects her from home. A weekly pattern for a young woman with an intellectual disability, in a document anyone who receives it can read. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Her weekly routine and who collects her 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

Funding and the rate

How her plan is managed, what is set aside and the hourly rate. Financial information about her plan and commercial information about the service.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A price and budget for one participant; low risk alone, higher beside her name
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

Cancellation terms

What happens if she cancels at short notice. The service’s own commercial position, written for one participant. What a service may claim for a cancelled support is set by the NDIS rules in force, which should be checked rather than assumed.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	The service’s commercial position 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

7
Standard terms
Ending the agreement, the complaints process and the right to go to the Commission. Wording the service gives every participant.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Standard wording the service gives every participant; no personal data in it
Ermos Edge	Nothing to protect either way
Ermos Dominion	Nothing to protect either way

Emergency arrangements

Who is phoned first in a bushfire, where she may be taken, and that her medicine is held by her family. Bears on her physical safety, and the standard expects agreements to set out arrangements for an emergency or disaster. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Her family’s emergency plan 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

Signatures

The standard expects the participant to receive a signed copy of the agreement, or a record of why she did not. The names and dates tie the document to the people who made it.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Transmitted, and the leak is traceable to you
Ermos Edge	Signing is an act by the people named; no tool does it
Ermos Dominion	Signing is an act by the people named; no tool does it

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 participant 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 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 NDIS services.

Common questions

Do ChatGPT and Claude use the information in an NDIS service agreement?

Yes. A template and the participant details pasted into it are sent to the AI company's servers and processed there to produce the filled-in or translated agreement. 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. This agreement carries Mei Lin's date of birth, her Down syndrome, her Saturday routine and her family's bushfire arrangements.

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

Not safely, because the agreement describes one young woman even without her 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. Down syndrome, Saturday swimming, collection from a home in Belmont and medicine held by her family would identify Mei Lin to anyone who knows the 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 for a service agreement?

Not on its own. 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. Mei Lin's disability, her parents' phone numbers and the family emergency plan would still reach the AI company. Our comparisons with ChatGPT Enterprise and Claude weigh the trade-offs.

How can an NDIS provider use AI for a service 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 agreement is drafted from the participant file and the service's own agreement template. The service manager checks it, and Mei Lin and her nominee read and sign it themselves.

Does an NDIS provider have to give a participant a service agreement?

The Service Agreements standard in the Practice Standards, which apply to registered providers, expects the NDIS provider to work with the participant to create an agreement that sets expectations, describes the supports and explains any conditions. It expects the participant to be helped to understand it and to receive a signed copy, or for the NDIS provider to record why not.

Can a service agreement include a cancellation charge?

A service can set out its cancellation terms in the agreement, but what a service may claim for a cancelled support is set by the NDIS pricing rules in force, which change. Check the current rules before relying on a template. The Service Agreements standard also expects any conditions to be explained in a way the participant can understand.

What about the emergency clause?

The Service Agreements standard expects an agreement to set out arrangements for supports during an emergency or disaster. These clauses often hold contact details and decisions about who is called first, which makes them personal to the family. Generic clause wording carries no participant information. The family's names, numbers and arrangements are not.

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 NDIS services Resources The Privacy Act, the APPs and AI All professions