Is Shadow AI The Next Threat?
Shadow AI: How Semi-Cloaked Data Use Permissions Lurk in Your EUAs
Every time your employees click “I agree” on a new software tool, they might unknowingly grant AI systems access to your company’s sensitive data. This recently developed digital risk, known as Shadow AI, represents one of the most insidious threats to corporate data security today — not because it’s illegal, but because it’s hidden in plain sight.
Legal, But Still Unethical
Software vendors have discovered a legal loophole that allows them to harvest your data for AI training purposes: burying these practices deep within end user agreements. These clauses are crafted to comply with the law while calling into question certain motives. Tucked between sections on liability limitations and arbitration clauses, vendors disclose that your uploaded documents, customer communications, and proprietary information may be used to train their large language models (LLMs).
The practice is technically consensual (you did click “agree”) but the disclosure is so obscured that calling it transparent would be generous at best. Companies bank on the fact that nobody reads the fine print, allowing them to monetize your data while maintaining plausible deniability about informed consent.
How These Practices Go Unnoticed
The harsh reality is that no one at your company has the bandwidth to properly review every end user agreement that crosses their desk. Your legal counsel juggles contracts, compliance issues, and litigation; they can’t dedicate hours to parsing through the EUA of every productivity tool or platform your teams adopt.
IT departments focus on functionality and security vulnerabilities, not the nuanced language of data usage policies buried on page 47 of an EUA. Meanwhile, individual employees select and implement tools based on immediate needs, completely unaware that they’re creating backdoors for AI data collection. This perfect storm of time constraints and distributed decision-making has created an environment where Shadow AI thrives unchecked.
How Companies Like BlackFog Disrupt Shadow AI
Fortunately, innovative solutions exist to combat this threat. BlackFog has developed proprietary software called ADX Vision that serves as a vigilant guardian against Shadow AI. This sophisticated platform continuously tracks, analyzes, and monitors the data collection practices of large language models integrated into your software ecosystem. ADX Vision doesn’t just identify which applications feed data to AI systems… it evaluates their storage protocols and usage policies, then provides granular control to block LLMs that fail to meet your organization’s data governance standards. BlackFog provides protection at the endpoint, and works 24/7/365 without its users required to do anything. In other words, BlackFog’s ADX Vision does all the work.
By automating the surveillance that humans simply don’t have time to perform, solutions like ADX Vision give companies the power to protect their data without sacrificing the productivity benefits of modern software tools.
More Information/Demonstration?
For more specific information or to see a demonstration of BlackFog ADX Vision, please contact IGTG and Scott Kunau at skunau@igtg.net.
