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Sometimes. GitHub’s current policy treats Copilot Free, Pro, Pro+, and Max differently from Copilot Business and Enterprise. Starting April 24, 2026, GitHub may use interactions from eligible individual plans—including inputs, outputs, code snippets, and associated context—to train and improve AI models, unless the individual disables the training-use setting. GitHub says it does not use Business or Enterprise customer data to train AI models under its Data Protection Agreement (DPA).
That training switch is only one privacy control. Public-code matching, administrative content exclusion, and Copilot Chat’s Bing access each address a different behavior. To choose the right protection, first identify whether your Copilot access is an individual subscription or an organization-managed Business or Enterprise seat.
The short answer: your plan determines the training policy
GitHub’s individual-subscriber documentation records a policy change effective April 24, 2026. For Copilot Free, Pro, Pro+, and Max, GitHub may use interactions with GitHub features and services—including prompts, generated outputs, code snippets, and related context—to train and improve AI models. Eligible individual users can opt out in Copilot settings.
GitHub states that it does not use Copilot Business or Copilot Enterprise customer data to train AI models, citing protections in its DPA. An organization-managed seat therefore follows the organization’s plan and policies rather than the individual training switch. Older explanations that every Copilot plan categorically excludes interactions from training are no longer accurate for individual plans after the April 24, 2026 effective date. See GitHub’s current individual-subscriber policy documentation.
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First, determine which Copilot account you are using
The same GitHub account can expose different controls depending on how Copilot access was assigned. An individual subscription is purchased and managed by you. A Business or Enterprise seat is assigned by an organization and inherits organization or enterprise policy. The distinction controls both training treatment and which settings you can change yourself.
- Individual: Copilot Free, Pro, Pro+, or Max. You can use the personal training-use opt-out described below. Individual settings also include a public-code matching choice and the Bing access setting for Copilot Chat.
- Organization-managed: Copilot Business or Enterprise. GitHub says customer data is not used to train AI models. Administrators control organization-wide features such as content exclusion, and an assigned Enterprise seat may inherit the organization’s public-code matching policy.
If an expected personal setting is missing, GitHub specifically advises checking whether your account has a Business or Enterprise license. Those plans are protected under the DPA and do not show the individual training-use control.
How to opt out of training on an individual plan
For an individual Copilot Free, Pro, Pro+, or Max account, use this path:
- Sign in to GitHub and open the profile menu.
- Choose Copilot settings.
- Find Allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training.
- Set the control to Disabled.
The setting is an opt-out of using eligible interactions for AI-model training and improvement. It is not a promise that Copilot stops processing prompts or repository context while generating a response; Copilot still needs that context to provide completion, chat, or other enabled features. It also does not disable the separate public-code matching or Bing controls.
GitHub’s wording is deliberately broad: “Starting on April 24, 2026, if you have a Copilot Free, Copilot Pro, Copilot Pro+, or Copilot Max plan, GitHub may use your interactions with GitHub features and services—including inputs, outputs, code snippets, and associated context—to train and improve AI models.” The setting applies to the eligible individual account, so review it after changing plans or moving between personal and organization-managed access.
Public-code matching is a different privacy and provenance control
Copilot’s public-code setting governs whether suggestions that match code publicly available on GitHub are allowed, not whether your interactions are used to train models. On individual plans, you can allow or block these suggestions in Copilot settings.
When blocking is enabled, most Copilot products check a suggestion and approximately 150 surrounding characters against public code on GitHub. A match or near-match suppresses the suggestion. When matching suggestions are allowed, Copilot can show match details and links to the repositories containing the corresponding public code. The approximately 150-character figure and behavior are described in GitHub’s policy documentation.
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If an Enterprise seat is assigned by an organization, you cannot set public-code matching independently. The organization or enterprise policy is inherited by your account. Ask the GitHub administrator which policy is active if the control is locked or absent.
What Business and Enterprise protection means
GitHub’s current individual-subscriber page states: “GitHub does not use Copilot Business or Copilot Enterprise customer data to train AI models.” This is a plan-level statement tied to the protections in the DPA, not a setting you must toggle for every employee.
That statement does not mean an organization can ignore ordinary data-governance work. Copilot features still receive the prompts, files, and context required to answer a request, and administrators remain responsible for deciding which repositories and files employees may expose to those features. Purchase route also matters: GitHub’s rollout guidance says a direct GitHub purchase uses GitHub Generative AI Services Terms, while a purchase through Microsoft is governed by Microsoft’s Product Terms, including Microsoft Generative AI Service terms and terms specific to GitHub Offerings. Review the applicable contract and policy set for the actual purchasing route. See GitHub’s approval and governance resources.
Content exclusion: keep selected files out of supported Copilot contexts
Business and Enterprise organizations can configure content exclusion for selected files. The goal is to prevent excluded files from informing inline suggestions in other files or Copilot responses. Excluded files themselves do not receive inline suggestions and are not reviewed in Copilot code review.
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Control ownership follows the repository and organization hierarchy. Repository administrators, organization owners, and enterprise owners can configure exclusions within their respective scopes. The exact coverage therefore depends on where the rule is created and which repositories or users it applies to. Content exclusion is an administrative context control; it is not the same as the individual training opt-out or public-code matching.
Important limits of content exclusion
- Indirect semantic information can still flow: GitHub says an IDE may supply information derived from an excluded file, such as type information, symbol definitions, or build configuration. The excluded source text is not necessarily sent verbatim, but the feature may receive related signals needed to understand a project.
- Symbolic links are not covered: GitHub documents that exclusions currently do not apply to symlinks.
- Remote filesystems are not covered: Repositories on remote filesystems are outside the current exclusion behavior.
- Edit and Agent modes are unsupported: In VS Code and other editors, GitHub says content exclusion currently does not apply to Edit and Agent modes.
Because of these limits, treat exclusion as risk reduction for supported features and paths, not as an absolute isolation boundary. Map sensitive repositories, generated configuration, and development environments before deciding that an exclusion rule is sufficient. The supported behavior and limitations are listed in GitHub’s content-exclusion documentation.
Copilot Chat’s Bing setting controls web search, not training
GitHub accounts include a separate control for Copilot access to Bing. It is disabled by default. Enabling it allows Copilot Chat to search the internet through Bing for information related to a question.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteThis setting changes whether Copilot Chat can perform web searches; it does not change the individual-plan training-use policy, Business or Enterprise training protection, public-code matching, or content exclusion. Keep it disabled when your organization’s policy prohibits sending questions to an external search service, and enable it only when the additional, current web information is worth that data flow. GitHub documents the control alongside the individual settings at Managing GitHub Copilot policies as an individual subscriber.
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Compare the controls before choosing one
| Control | Who can change it | What it changes | Eligibility or coverage | Key limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI-model training opt-out | Individual account holder | Disables GitHub’s use of eligible individual interactions for training and improving AI models | Copilot Free, Pro, Pro+, and Max | Not shown for Business or Enterprise seats; does not stop normal feature processing |
| Business/Enterprise training protection | Established by plan and DPA terms | GitHub states customer data is not used to train AI models | Copilot Business and Enterprise | Contract terms vary by direct GitHub versus Microsoft purchase |
| Public-code matching | Individual user, or organization policy for assigned Enterprise seats | Allows or blocks suggestions matching public GitHub code | Most Copilot products; blocking checks about 150 surrounding characters | Addresses suggestion matching, not model training |
| Content exclusion | Repository administrator, organization owner, or enterprise owner | Keeps selected files from informing supported inline suggestions and Copilot responses | Business and Enterprise organizational controls | Indirect semantics, symlinks, remote filesystems, and Edit/Agent modes create gaps |
| Bing access for Copilot Chat | Account or organization policy, where available | Allows Copilot Chat to search the web through Bing | Disabled by default | Web-search control only; unrelated to training and code matching |
A practical privacy checklist
- Identify the license: confirm whether the seat is Free, Pro, Pro+, Max, Business, or Enterprise, and whether an organization assigned it.
- Set the individual training preference: on an eligible personal plan, open Copilot settings and disable Allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training if you do not want eligible interactions used for that purpose.
- Choose a public-code policy: block matching suggestions when provenance risk outweighs the convenience of receiving a potentially matching snippet.
- Ask administrators about exclusions: for company repositories, identify sensitive paths and confirm which repository, organization, or enterprise owner controls the rule.
- Check unsupported paths and modes: account for symlinks, remote filesystems, IDE-derived semantic information, and Edit or Agent modes before relying on content exclusion.
- Decide on web search separately: leave Bing access disabled unless Copilot Chat’s internet search is permitted and useful for your work.
- Review purchase terms: security, legal, and procurement teams should verify whether the subscription was bought directly from GitHub or through Microsoft and apply the corresponding terms.
Questions security and engineering teams should document
For an internal approval record, capture the Copilot plan, seat owner, effective policies, repositories covered by content exclusion, unsupported workflows, public-code matching behavior, and Bing status. Record who can change each control and how a change is communicated to developers. This creates a usable boundary between account-level preferences and organization-level governance instead of treating “Copilot privacy” as one switch.
Also distinguish training use from runtime context. A training opt-out concerns later model improvement. Content exclusion concerns whether selected files inform supported Copilot interactions. Public-code matching concerns whether a generated suggestion resembles public code. Bing access concerns an external web search. Each protects against a different data or provenance concern, so enabling one does not substitute for the others.
Bottom line for individual developers and organizations
Individual Copilot users should check their plan and, if they use Free, Pro, Pro+, or Max, decide whether to disable the training-use setting that applies from April 24, 2026. Organizations using Business or Enterprise benefit from GitHub’s stated no-training treatment for customer data, but still need administrative controls for sensitive content and a review of the governing purchase terms. Use public-code matching, content exclusion, and Bing access for their specific purposes; none is a universal privacy switch.
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