A shared login gives the AI everyone's access

An AI tool reads whatever its login can reach.
If five people share that login, the AI can reach everything any of the five can, and answer anyone who asks.
For a firm that keeps client information apart, the login decides more than the AI does.

Why small firms share logins

Plenty of small firms run on shared logins: one for reception, one for the client desk, one the partners use.
It saves seats and setup, and in an office of eight people it rarely feels like a risk.

Before AI, a shared login mostly cost you a clear record of who did what.
With AI on top, it also decides what the AI can read, search and repeat back.

The AI inherits the login’s reach

Microsoft says its Copilot only surfaces data the user can at least view, and tells customers to get permissions right first.
That rule is fair, and it means the AI’s reach equals the login’s.
A shared login is everyone’s reach combined.

The rule also depends on the software keeping to it.
In January 2026 Microsoft confirmed a bug that let Copilot summarise emails labelled confidential despite the rules meant to stop it.
In 2025 a researcher found Copilot could read a file without writing an audit-log entry.

The record names the login, not the person

When an AI tool sends an email or changes a record, the log says which login asked.
With a shared login, that answer is “reception”.
If a client complains, you cannot say which of your people did it.

UK GDPR expects you to show how you protect personal data, and a log that names nobody shows almost nothing.
Cyber Essentials goes further.
The scheme’s own guidance says shared accounts are not compliant.

Where this bites: keeping clients apart

Some firms have a duty to keep information apart, not only a preference.

• Law firms. The SRA Code requires solicitors to keep client affairs confidential, and limits acting where one client’s confidential information could help another.
• Financial firms. The FCA’s conflicts rules, SYSC 10, cover the information barriers a firm uses to keep one side of the business from knowing what the other knows.
• Recruiters. Candidate-side and client-side staff often should not see each other’s notes, salaries or shortlists.

A barrier your staff respect means little if the AI ignores it.
Ask the assistant on the client desk to summarise a candidate, and it will search everything its login can reach.

How we handle it

We support shared desk logins on purpose, because small firms use them and pretending otherwise helps nobody.
Each desk login gets its own area, and you can let a login read an area without letting it change anything there.

The area applies to what the AI searches, not only to which tools it may use.
A tool check alone leaves a gap: the AI also pulls background material into every answer, and that path has to respect the area too.

It has two limits, and you should hear them from us first.

• A shared login cannot tell you who did it. Our record names the login.
  Give each person their own login wherever it matters who approved or sent something.
• Your areas are set up with us. Every account can see its logins and roles in Settings.
  Splitting staff into areas of your own design takes a conversation with us for now.

Our trust page covers how we separate access, and a separate post covers what your AI supplier’s staff can see.
This post is not legal advice, so check your regulator’s rules for your own firm.