GitHub Copilot, however useful it may be, ruffled some feathers when it emerged given that it was trained partly on code hosted on GitHub already.
Fast forward to 2026, and the Microsoft-owned platform is back for another round, though this time it is at least being forthcoming about it.
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From the GitHub announcement post:
“From April 24 onward, interaction data—specifically inputs, outputs, code snippets, and associated context—from Copilot Free, Pro, and Pro+ users will be used to train and improve our AI models unless they opt out. Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise users are not affected by this update.”
Unsurprisingly, business and enterprise users will not be subject to these changes, only us mere mortals. More specifically, GitHub will be using this data to train AI:
- Outputs accepted or modified by you
- Inputs sent to GitHub Copilot, including code snippets shown to the model
- Code context surrounding your cursor position
- Comments and documentation you write
- File names, repository structure, and navigation patterns
- Interactions with Copilot features (chat, inline suggestions, etc.)
- Your feedback on suggestions (thumbs up/down ratings)
There’s the whole spiel about how this aligns with industry standard practice and how real-world data will make the models smarter. But it should also be noted that GitHub may share the collected data with affiliates, including Microsoft.
Should you decide this isn’t for you, especially given the open-source nature of a sizeable quantity of GitHub-hosted projects, you will be able to opt out. If you don’t use GitHub Copilot at all, then you won’t be feeding any further data to the great AI machine in the sky, but you’ll still have the same option to say “no thanks.”
Head into your GitHub settings and you’ll find the option under Privacy. If you’ve done this previously to opt out of GitHub collecting data, you should already be set, but it’s worth checking anyway.
It’s another timely reminder also that none of these AI models can exist without us. Without real people producing real material to feed into the engine, they’re nothing. Policies like this wouldn’t come into play if AI could train itself, would they?
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