We plan to bring eChai across 100 cities in India. It starts with eChai Startup Demo Day on 26 September, all in person. 13 cities confirmed, 952 founders registered. Any city that reaches 20 interested founders is on too. See your city
Building & Product

Is it safe to send customer data to AI APIs, and what about privacy laws like India's DPDP Act?

The major API providers (OpenAI, Anthropic) do not train on your API data by default and offer short or zero retention, so the common fear is mostly solved by reading the actual policies and signing the right agreement. Your real risks are elsewhere: prompt injection and data leakage in your own app (see the OWASP LLM Top 10), and your legal duties as a data fiduciary under India's DPDP Act or GDPR, including consent, purpose limitation, and deletion. Minimise what you send, redact PII where you can, and put your provider's terms in your own privacy policy.

Go deeper

18 resources.

Terms in this answer

Data Privacy Retention

More in AI in Your Product

Should my startup add AI features, and which ones actually matter to users? 20 → How do founders ship their first AI feature (APIs, wrappers, RAG in plain terms)? 19 → How much does it cost to run AI features, and how do I keep costs sane? 19 → Which AI model should I build on (GPT, Claude, Gemini, open-source), and how do I avoid locking myself in? 17 → How do I test whether my AI feature actually works before launch (evals, in plain terms)? 18 → How do I stop my AI feature from making things up in front of customers? 17 → Prompt engineering, RAG, or fine-tuning: which one does my product actually need? 18 → How do I design AI features people trust (chat vs buttons, streaming, showing the work)? 18 → What is my moat if I'm building on someone else's model? 19 → Should I put an AI agent in my product, or is a simple workflow enough? 18 → How should I price AI features: per seat, per use, or per outcome? 17 → My AI feature is live. How do I monitor it and make it better with real usage? 18 →

Also in Starting Up

The same ground, over in Build the product, our Starting Up track.

What actually counts as an MVP, and what's the smallest one I can get away with? 20 → Which no-code tool should I use to build my first product? 20 →
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →