Glossary

Sanctioned AI tool

A sanctioned AI tool is one your organisation has approved under contract, with defined data handling, retention and training terms — usually an enterprise tenant covered by a DPA. Everything else is unsanctioned, including a personal account on the same product.

ONE PASTE SANCTIONED PERSONAL
Same hostname. Same interface. Entirely different legal position.
The distinction is The account Not the domain

The account, not the domain

This is where most policies go wrong.

chatgpt.com is not sanctioned or unsanctioned; the session is. Your enterprise tenant and an employee’s personal free account are the same hostname, the same interface, and entirely different legal positions.

A control that classifies by domain will mark both as approved. One that classifies by tenant or account context can tell them apart — and that difference is usually the difference between a governed disclosure and an ungoverned one.

Why severity should differ

The same finding is a different event.

A card number reaching your contracted tenant under a no-training DPA is a policy matter to correct. The same card number reaching a personal free-tier account is an uncontrolled third-party disclosure.

Scoring them identically produces a queue your analysts stop reading — mostly full of alerts about the tool you told everyone to use.

Sanctioned tenant compared with a personal account
 Sanctioned tenantPersonal / unsanctioned
Contract and DPA
Training exclusionDepends on tier
Retention termsDefined, often negotiableProvider default
Deletion on requestContractualBest effort
BAA available, for PHISometimes
Your audit rightsDefined

In Itzal this is a per-framework parameter. PCI DSS might exempt nothing; an internal codename policy might warn only on unsanctioned destinations.

Sanctioning is not permanent

Two failure modes worth a calendar reminder.

Terms change. A provider updates its data handling and your sanctioned tool is now governed by something you have not read. Re-verify at renewal, at minimum.

Features appear. An approved SaaS product ships an AI feature after your assessment. The vendor is still approved; a new data flow to a model provider is not. This is the third form of shadow AI, and it arrives without anyone deciding anything.

Related terms

Classify by account, not by hostname.

If your control cannot tell the enterprise tenant from a personal login on the same site, it is not making the distinction that matters.