AI Image Security and Privacy — What Happens to Your Data

The two questions everyone should ask

1. Are my prompts and uploads used to train future models?
2. Where are my generated images stored, and who can access them?

For any AI image platform you use, get direct answers before you upload proprietary work.

Platform positions (mid-2026)

• Midjourney — Standard tier: generations are public in a shared feed. Pro/Mega: private mode available.
• OpenAI DALL-E — Not used for training by default; controls in account settings.
• Stability AI — API prompts not used for training; free web demo may be.
• Imagoat — Uploaded references are private to your account. Prompts are not used to train models.

Always check the current terms — they change.

Data at rest

Every image generation platform stores your output somewhere. Ask:

• Is it encrypted at rest?
• How long is it retained?
• Can I delete it and have it actually removed?

For sensitive work — pre-release products, client-confidential creative — self-hosting via RunPod or an on-prem SDXL deployment is the safest path.

Watermarking and detection

Most platforms watermark generated images either visibly (free tiers) or invisibly via SynthID / C2PA metadata. That's usually a good thing — it lets images be traced. If you strip it, you're on your own for provenance.

Protecting your prompts

Prompts are trade secrets for a working AI creative business. Best practices:

• Store prompt libraries in a service you control (not a platform that could see them)
• Version them like source code
• Don't share your best ones in public tutorials

Protecting reference images

Never upload a reference that:

• You don't have the rights to (someone else's photo of a person)
• Contains identifiable people who haven't consented
• Contains trade-secret product designs to a platform whose data policy you haven't verified

What Imagoat guarantees

Private storage per account, no training on your data, deletion on request, encryption at rest. Full policy at imagoat.com/privacy.