AI Assistant Statement
Scottish Water AI Assistant Statement
This statement explains how Scottish Water collects and uses information when you interact with the Scottish Water AI Assistant on our website. It explains:
• what the AI Assistant does;
• what information is processed;
• why we use that information;
• how long we keep it;
• who can access it;
• how we protect it; and
• your data protection rights.
About the Scottish Water AI Assistant
The Scottish Water AI Assistant is a customer-facing digital service designed to help people find information published on scottishwater.co.uk.
The Assistant is powered by Microsoft Copilot technology. You can ask questions in your own words and the Assistant will use approved information published on the Scottish Water website to generate a response.
The Assistant is restricted to information published on scottishwater.co.uk. It is not designed to search the wider internet or use information from external websites when answering questions.
What the AI Assistant can and cannot do
The AI Assistant can:
• help you find information published on the Scottish Water website;
• answer general questions using approved Scottish Water website content;
• direct you to relevant Scottish Water webpages; and
• help you identify other ways to contact Scottish Water when you need further support.
The AI Assistant cannot:
• access Scottish Water customer accounts;
• access billing or payment information;
• access internal customer records or service records;
• make changes to your account;
• process payments or complete transactions;
• make decisions about your services, supply or entitlement to support; or
• replace advice or assistance from a Scottish Water colleague.
The Assistant provides information and guidance only. It does not make automated decisions that have a legal or similarly significant effect on you. Decisions about customer accounts, services or supplies continue to be made by Scottish Water colleagues.
Information processed when you use the AI Assistant
When you use the AI Assistant, Scottish Water may process:
• the questions, search terms or other information you enter;
• the responses generated by the Assistant;
• audit information about the interaction;
• information needed to monitor the performance, security and reliability of the service; and
• feedback you choose to provide about the response or your experience.
The Assistant does not require your name, contact details, account number or other personal information to answer general questions about information published on our website.
Please do not enter personal information
Please do not enter personal information into the AI Assistant.
This includes information such as:
• your full name;
• your full address;
• your email address or telephone number;
• your Scottish Water account details;
• payment or bank information;
• information about another person;
• information about your health or personal circumstances; or
• any other confidential or sensitive information.
The Assistant is designed to provide general information rather than deal with customer-specific circumstances.
If your enquiry requires personal information, relates to an account, involves an urgent service issue or concerns personal circumstances, please use the appropriate Scottish Water contact channel instead.
The Assistant is configured to identify and redact location information from retained audit logs. However, you should still avoid entering a full address or other information that could identify you or another person.
Why we process this information
Scottish Water processes information from interactions with the AI Assistant to:
• respond to your question;
• help you find relevant information on our website;
• operate and secure the AI Assistant;
• monitor whether the Assistant is working properly;
• review the accuracy, quality and appropriateness of responses;
• identify and investigate faults, misuse or potentially inappropriate responses;
• understand the types of information people are looking for;
• improve the AI Assistant and the customer experience; and
• improve the quality and accessibility of information on the Scottish Water website.
Audit logs, response sampling, customer feedback and periodic testing are used to monitor the Assistant and identify inaccurate, inappropriate or potentially biased responses. Where an issue is identified, Scottish Water can take corrective action by updating website content, changing the Assistant’s configuration or carrying out further testing.
Who we share information with
The Scottish Water AI Assistant is built using Microsoft Copilot technology. Microsoft provides the technology platform that powers and hosts the service on behalf of Scottish Water.
Where information is processed through the AI Assistant, Microsoft may process that information as a data processor acting on Scottish Water's instructions and in accordance with applicable contractual, security and data protection requirements.
Scottish Water does not permit Microsoft to use information from AI Assistant conversations for advertising or profiling purposes.
How long we keep the information
Scottish Water retains conversation prompts, responses and associated audit information for 30 days.
We retain this information to:
• monitor the performance of the AI Assistant;
• review the quality and accuracy of responses;
• investigate faults or inappropriate responses;
• support security and assurance activities; and
• improve the service.
At the end of the 30-day retention period, the information will be deleted or, because it is anonymous data, it may be retained for reporting purposes.
Who can access the information
Access to AI Assistant conversation and audit information is restricted to authorised Scottish Water colleagues who require access to:
• operate and maintain the service;
• monitor performance;
• review prompts and responses;
• investigate faults, security concerns or inappropriate responses;
• carry out assurance and testing; or
• improve the Assistant and Scottish Water’s website content.
Access to the AI Assistant’s configuration is controlled within Scottish Water and is limited to authorised owners, administrators and editors.
High-level or aggregated insights may be shared with relevant Scottish Water teams to help them understand what information website users are looking for and improve the content for which they are responsible. Such reporting will be limited to relevant, summarised information.
Microsoft Copilot
The Scottish Water AI Assistant is powered by Microsoft Copilot technology. Microsoft provides and hosts the technology platform on Scottish Water's behalf and may process information submitted through the service solely to deliver and maintain the service under contractual arrangements with Scottish Water.
Scottish Water does not train or modify the underlying Microsoft large language model used by Copilot Studio. Scottish Water configures the Assistant, its instructions and the approved sources it can use to generate responses.
The Assistant does not share customer conversations for the purpose of training an external public AI model.
Where the information is processed
The AI Assistant is hosted in Microsoft’s UK South Azure region.
How we protect the information
Scottish Water has designed the AI Assistant to not require the processing of personal data and reduce the risk of inaccurate or ungrounded responses.
Safeguards include:
• restricting the Assistant to approved content published on scottishwater.co.uk;
• disabling wider internet search;
• disabling file uploads;
• preventing access to customer accounts and internal customer systems;
• instructing users not to provide personal information;
• redacting identified location information from audit logs;
• restricting access to authorised Scottish Water colleagues;
• monitoring prompts, responses and customer feedback;
• testing the service and periodically reviewing its operation; and
• maintaining alternative website and human-support routes.
The Assistant operates within separate development, test and production environments.
Accuracy of responses
The AI Assistant generates responses from approved information published on the Scottish Water website. However, AI-generated responses may occasionally be incomplete, inaccurate or not relevant to your circumstances.
You should check important information against the relevant Scottish Water webpage.
If you need information about your account, an urgent service issue or support based on your personal circumstances, please contact Scottish Water through the appropriate customer-service channel.
Scottish Water monitors the Assistant through testing, audit-log reviews, response sampling and customer feedback. This helps us identify issues and improve the service.
Using the AI Assistant is optional
You do not have to use the Scottish Water AI Assistant.
You can continue to:
• browse information directly on the Scottish Water website;
• use the website’s other search options;
• use Scottish Water’s online forms and services; or
• contact Scottish Water by telephone or through another available contact channel.
If you would prefer to speak to a person, call our Customer Helpline on 0800 0778 778.
Your data protection rights
The AI Assistant is not designed to require or collect information that directly identifies you. This means that Scottish Water is unable to connect a particular conversation to you without additional information.
If you believe you have entered personal information into the AI Assistant and want to exercise a data protection right, please provide enough information to help our Corporate Data & Compliance team consider your request. Scottish Water may need to confirm your identity before responding.
Further information about your rights is available in Scottish Water’s Corporate Privacy Notice
