Does Slack sell your data? What its policy says
The short answer
Does Slack sell your data? Slack's privacy policy says it does not sell personal information under the CCPA. It may share identifiers and web activity with advertisers for ad targeting outside Slack. Slack will not train generative AI models on your messages unless you opt in.
The question mixes three things: the messages, the facts about the people who use Slack, and AI training. Slack's pages treat them separately, so I will too.
Does Slack sell what is in your messages?
Slack's privacy policy splits information in two. Customer Data means messages and files. The organization that created the workspace controls it. Slack acts as a processor and follows that organization's instructions. The policy says the organization sets the rules for it.
The privacy principles add that customers own their own Customer Data. Neither page says Slack sells it. I can't tell you what Slack does in practice, only what its published text says.
Does Slack sell information about people who use it?
The policy says Slack does not sell the personal information it collects, as the CCPA or otherwise defines "sell." It also says Slack may share identifiers and internet activity with third-party advertisers. These are used for targeted ads on non-Slack sites.
That second sentence concerns marketing data about visitors and users. The page does not tie it to message content. The policy lists nine categories of collected information, including identifiers, commercial information and professional or employment data.
Does Slack train AI on your messages?
Slack's privacy principles say it will not use Customer Data to train generative AI models unless the customer gives clear opt-in consent. They also say Slack does not build broadly used models in a way that could reproduce part of Customer Data.
A workspace owner can opt out of use in Slack's global models. To do so, email feedback@slack.com with the subject line "Slack Global model opt-out request."
In May 2024, TechCrunch reported a backlash over a version of this page that required an email opt-out. Slack said at the time that its platform machine learning used customer data for features like search and channel recommendations. It said Slack AI's LLMs were not trained on customer data. The principles page I read carries the opt-in rule for generative AI.
Does this change what happens if your company licenses its own export?
Slack's pages describe Slack's own conduct. A separate document, its API terms, bars outside apps from using API data to train a large language model. Those terms do not address a customer's own export. See what Slack allows.
Whether your company may license Slack messages depends on NDAs, shared channels, employee privacy law and customer contracts. Start with who owns Slack messages and is it legal to license company Slack data.
Talk to a privacy or commercial lawyer in your state before you sign. This page is research and not legal advice.
Vaultfish helps you run the process. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. If you need counsel who knows this area, we can point you to one. Ask for a referral
