Complaint response letters and AI privacy: what an agency complaint response gives away in ChatGPT or Claude.

A complaint response is hard to write: it has to admit what went wrong, explain the rule, fix the problem and keep the tone calm. A principal who has just found out that a property manager threatened a tenant with a database listing may well paste the file into ChatGPT or Claude to get the wording right. The letter holds the tenant’s complaint, her arrears and her safety, the owner’s instruction, the name of the staff member who made the mistake and what the agency will do about it. This page marks every item in a routine complaint response and shows how the same letter is drafted on Ermos inside the agency.

The tenant complaint response letter

Sent after a tenant complains in writing. NSW Fair Trading says a tenant can be listed on a tenancy database only after the tenancy has ended, and the landlord or agent must give written notice and at least 14 days to respond, so a letter that promises a listing is a matter for the principal.

Wattlebird Property · Summer Hill
Friday 30 October 2026 · Ref C-2026-014

Ms Kayla Brennan, 4/31 Lorikeet Road, Summer Hill NSW 2130¹

Dear Ms Brennan,

Thank you for your complaint of 21 October. You complained that our email of 19 October told you we would list you on a tenancy database if your rent was not paid by Friday, and that it frightened you.²

You were right. Our property manager wrote that without checking the rules. A tenant can be listed only after the tenancy has ended, only if the tenant is named on the agreement and only if the debt is more than the bond or the Tribunal has ordered termination. Your arrears of $1,440 are less than your bond of $2,880, and your tenancy has not ended. We apologise.³

Ms Pike has been retrained on the rules, and every arrears notice she writes now comes to me before it is sent.⁴

Your arrears are $1,440. We have agreed $250 a week on top of your rent from 6 November until they are cleared.⁵

You told Ms Pike on 23 October about the end of your relationship and your safety. That has not been passed to the owner, and the lock change is arranged. NSW Fair Trading says a tenant cannot be listed if the tenancy ended because of domestic abuse, and we will keep that in mind if you decide to leave.⁶

Mr Penhall asked us to list you. We have told him the rules and that we will not list you while the tenancy continues.⁷

We have withdrawn our email of 19 October and will send you written confirmation that no listing has been made.⁸

If you are not satisfied, you can contact NSW Fair Trading on 13 32 20 or apply to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.⁹

Yours sincerely,
Dianne Karras
Licensee in Charge

An invented complaint response. The people, the address and the reference are fictional. Hover or tap any highlighted item for the analysis; the full list is below.

What leaves the agency

The tenant and her address

A named tenant and where she lives. Personal information, and the key to everything below. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A named tenant and her 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 complaint

What the tenant complained about and how it made her feel. The tenant’s own account, given to the agency to resolve it. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	The tenant’s complaint 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 admission and the rule

An agency acknowledging it was wrong, with the rule stated. The rule is published by NSW Fair Trading. The admission is the agency’s own, and a person has to decide how far to go in writing it.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	The rule is public; the admission is the agency’s own
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance; the principal must still decide the wording
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit; the principal must still decide the wording

The action taken against a named staff member

Retraining and a new approval step for a named employee. Information about an employee, written for the tenant. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	An employee’s name and discipline 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 tenant’s arrears and payment plan

The amount owed and the terms agreed. Financial information about the tenant. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	The tenant’s arrears and 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

A safety disclosure

The end of a relationship, the tenant’s safety and a lock change, with the statement that the owner was not told. Highly personal information that could endanger someone if it reached the wrong person. Fair Trading says a tenant cannot be listed if the tenancy ended because of domestic abuse. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A safety disclosure 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 owner’s instruction

That the owner asked for a listing and was told no. A client’s instruction and the agency’s answer, disclosed to the tenant by the agency itself.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	The owner’s instruction 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 remedy

A withdrawn email and a written confirmation. The agency’s offer to put things right, which a person should settle before the tenant reads it.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Your remedy transmitted before the tenant reads it
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

9
Where to take it next
The Fair Trading telephone number and the Tribunal. Public information with no personal data in it.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Public referral information
Ermos Edge	Not about where data goes
Ermos Dominion	Not about where data goes

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 agency 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 property 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 real estate agencies.

Common questions

Do ChatGPT and Claude use the information in a tenant complaint response letter?

A pasted letter goes to the AI company's servers and is processed there to produce a 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. This letter names the tenant and her address, her $1,440 arrears, her disclosure about the end of a relationship and her safety, the owner's instruction to list her and the retraining of a named property manager.

Can we use ChatGPT or Claude for a tenant complaint response letter if we remove the names?

No, because the facts still identify the tenant. 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 $1,440 debt against a $2,880 bond, a complaint about an email of 19 October and a lock change after a separation point to one person. 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 be trusted to draft a tenant complaint response letter?

Not without a check. Language models can produce fluent text with details that are not in the source, wrong figures, wrong dates or references that look real but are not. A qualified person should check every item against the file. In this letter the statement of the rule on listing, the arrears and bond figures, the dates, the Fair Trading telephone number and the promises in the remedy would do the most harm if wrong.

How can a real estate agency use AI for a tenant complaint response letter 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 letter is drafted from the complaint file and the agency's own response template. The principal checks every statement and promise against the file, then signs it.

What must happen before a tenant can be listed on a database?

NSW Fair Trading says the landlord or agent must tell the tenant in writing and give at least 14 days to respond, and must consider the response before listing. The listing must also state the reason clearly, accurately and completely, and an agent who finds a listing wrong must correct it or tell the operator within 7 days.

What can a tenant do if the agency's reply does not resolve the complaint?

NSW Fair Trading's tenancy database guidance gives 13 32 20 as the number to call for advice, and refers to the Tribunal for disputes about listings. A written response that is accurate and records what the agency will do makes it easier for everyone to see what was promised.

Why is an admission in a complaint letter sensitive?

Because it states in writing what the agency got wrong, and may be read later by the tenant, the owner, a regulator or a tribunal. How far to go is a decision for the principal. Drafting it in a tool that stores prompts puts the agency's candid position on a third party's servers first.

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