Govt Staff Told Not to Tell AI Everything

Government workers in Pakistan have been prohibited from submitting classified materials, official correspondence, software source code and individuals' personal details to public artificial intelligence systems, as outlined in the National Cybersecurity Handbook 2026-27 released by the National Cyber Emergency Response Team (PKCERT).

The handbook, which provides practical cybersecurity guidance for government and public sector staff based on the Pakistan Information Security Framework (PISF) 2026, cautions that inserting sensitive data into public AI platforms could lead to data breaches, unauthorized storage, and exposure of classified national information to external AI training models.

Officials are required to utilize only AI tools and platforms approved by their respective departments, and must remove names and other sensitive information from queries and uploaded files, promptly reporting any inadvertent disclosure of confidential data to their departmental IT or cybersecurity teams. The directives also forbid government personnel from divulging passwords, administrative credentials, and application programming interface keys to AI tools, as well as installing unauthorized AI extensions or plugins on official devices.

PKCERT has further mandated officials to scrutinize AI-generated content for accuracy and security before employing it in government affairs. While the handbook permits AI tools for content generation, analysis and routine tasks, it insists that their usage must remain subject to security safeguards, privacy requirements and human oversight.