---
title: 'Hiding names and email addresses from an AI assistant'
description: 'Stop a connected AI assistant from ever seeing who your students are, while it still does useful work.'
canonical: 'https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/using-signal-mcp/hiding-names-and-email-addresses-from-an-ai-assistant'
siteGuide: 'https://www.gonurture.com/llms.txt'
---

![Hiding names and email addresses from an AI assistant](https://www.gonurture.com/og/tutorials/hiding-names-and-email-addresses-from-an-ai-assistant.png)

Teacher

Stop a connected AI assistant from ever seeing who your students are, while it still does useful work.

Updated 26 August 2026

If you connect an AI assistant to your Signal data, you can stop it from ever seeing who your students are, while still letting it do useful work.

**When to use it:** Before you connect an assistant, if you’d rather it never received real student names and email addresses.

## What the setting does

Turn it on and every name, every email address and every avatar is removed from what the assistant receives.

Names and email addresses are replaced with an anonymous reference, such as `P-7QK2M4XA`. Avatars are removed entirely.

## The useful part: references stay consistent

The same person keeps the same reference everywhere. Across every question, every session, all term.

So an assistant can still tell you that `P-7QK2M4XA` has answered confidently on algebra and struggled on fractions three times running. It can follow one student’s pattern without ever knowing who that student is. When you want to know who it is talking about, you look the reference up yourself.

That is what makes this worth using rather than something you switch on and lose half the value.

The reference is generated inside your own account. The assistant cannot work backwards from it to a name.

**This applies to the AI connection only.** Signal itself and your exports continue to show real names. Turning this on changes what leaves Signal for your assistant, not what you see.

## What it does not cover

**Anything a student wrote is sent as written.** Comments, reflections and written explanations are untouched.

So if a student types their own name into a reflection, or names a classmate, that text reaches the assistant. The setting removes the identity fields Signal holds. It cannot read free text and decide what in it is a name.

Worth knowing if your students routinely sign their reflections.

## Turning it on

The setting is on the **Connect AI agents** page, in the **Privacy** section below the server URL. To get there, choose your **profile icon** in the top right of the dashboard, then **Connect your AI Agent**.

The section is headed _“What your AI client can read about the people in your sessions”_, and it spells out what changes when the setting is on: names and emails become a stable reference, avatars are dropped, and comment and reflection text is unchanged.

**It is off by default.** Unless you turn it on, or your organisation has turned it on for everyone, a connected assistant receives real names and email addresses. If you want it on, switch it on before you connect an assistant rather than after.

## If your school or diocese requires it

An organisation can require this for everyone. Where that is set, individual teachers cannot switch it off, and the setting shows as locked. If yours is locked, that is why, and there is nothing you need to do.

This is a floor rather than a default. A teacher can always be more private than their organisation requires, never less. For a school system that needs to be able to say student names are never sent to an external AI provider, that guarantee holds across every teacher in the organisation, not just the ones who remembered to switch it on.

## Checking it is working

Ask your connected assistant who took part in a recent session. With the setting on, you will get references rather than names back.

[Previous Connecting an AI assistant to Signal](https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/using-signal-mcp/connecting-an-ai-assistant-to-signal.md) [Next Organising sessions by class with groups](https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/organisation/create-a-group-and-add-sessions.md)

Related articles

-   [Connecting an AI assistant to Signal](https://www.gonurture.com/tutorials/signal/using-signal-mcp/connecting-an-ai-assistant-to-signal.md)

Still stuck?

We're happy to help you directly. [Get in touch with the Nurture team](https://www.gonurture.com/contact-us.md).