Would you paste this into an AI tool?
A colleague wants help rewriting an incident summary. Before copying the report into a chatbot, pause and read this fictional example.
On 14 September, aboard MV Example, a named crew member reported a hand injury. The draft includes their medical note, witness statements, the vessel's next port, a client name and an extract from an internal investigation. “Please rewrite this as a polished report for management.”
Everything in this example is invented. Do not use a real report to complete the exercise.
Your two-minute challenge
- Which details would you stop and question before sharing?
- Does the writing task require the actual incident information?
- Who decides which AI tools and information are permitted in your organisation?
Compare your answer
The medical note, identity, witness accounts, operational information, client details and investigation material all deserve scrutiny. Removing the person's name alone does not resolve the issue: combinations of details may still identify people or reveal confidential activity.
For this exercise, ask for a blank structure instead of submitting the record:
Create a blank incident-summary template with headings for the event, immediate response, evidence, unresolved questions, actions, owners and review date. Leave every field empty. Do not invent facts or suggest that a conclusion has been reached.
Review the structure against your approved procedures. Complete operational records in the appropriate company system. Use your organisation's information-handling process to decide whether any AI-assisted task is permitted; a rewritten prompt does not make a prohibited workflow acceptable.
Take it into your next team discussion
Ask: “How would someone on our team check which tool and which information are approved before starting?” Record any gap and assign an owner to resolve it.
General training material, not an assessment of a particular incident or a substitute for company procedures.
Publish for maritime teams? Discuss an editorial contribution with Meriden.