Artificial Intelligence Acceptable Use Policy

[Effective April 1, 2025]

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a powerful and useful technology in today’s workforce. The Security Industry Association (SIA) acknowledges AI as an evolving and valuable tool that will serve our employees, volunteers and community for years to come. While AI has many benefits, risks do arise without proper precautions and it is important to ensure that SIA has an Artificial Intelligence Acceptable Use Policy (“AI Policy” or “Policy”) that sets guidelines regarding appropriate AI usage by SIA’s employees, officers, directors and volunteers to protect SIA’s business interests and sensitive and proprietary information. With these guidelines, SIA and its community will be able to harness the approved use of AI in accordance with this Policy while mitigating risks and addressing the potential vulnerabilities of AI, including the storage, replication or dissemination of SIA’s sensitive and proprietary information without our consent and other errors, inaccuracies or issues.

Note From the Administration

This AI Policy outlines the permissible use of AI applications in the performance of your duties and responsibilities for SIA. This AI Policy is intended to comply with federal, state and local law, and will be applied by SIA in a manner consistent with applicable law.

Policy Assessment and Changes

SIA shall review and reassess the adequacy of this Policy periodically with input from the AI Advisory Board and legal counsel, with any recommended changes submitted to the CEO for approval.

Volunteers submitting content are required to acknowledge compliance with the SIA AI Acceptable Use Policy. Changes to the AI Policy shall be approved by the CEO. SIA reserves the right to modify, suspend or terminate this Policy at any time for any reason at its sole discretion.

Principles and Guidelines

SIA is committed to harnessing the power of AI to drive its mission forward while upholding ethical standards and prioritizing responsible implementation. The following principles and guidelines for the use of AI must be followed:

  • Although you are permitted to use AI to perform your duties in accordance with this Policy, SIA considers you to be personally responsible and accountable for the performance of your duties, regardless of whether AI assisted you in the performance of such duties.
  • AI should not be the primary source of content. For example, if you are creating written content that SIA intends to use in a copyrighted publication or periodical, that content must not be generated solely by an AI tool. All content contributors must ensure that their use of these tools is tempered, appropriate and fitting of the purpose for which the tools were designed.
    • For competitive programs such as scholarship applications or award nominations, preference is given to original authorship, and submissions may be checked for the use of generative AI tools.
    • Speaker proposals and presentations are carefully reviewed for the use of generative AI tools. While AI-assisted content may be considered, preference is given to proposals that demonstrate original thought, human authorship and unique industry insights.
  • All AI output for any SIA business purpose must be independently verified by you, including for accuracy, originality and adherence to this Policy’s requirements, before you use or rely on such output for the performance of your duties. For example, if an AI tool describes the results of published research, it is a violation of this Policy to rely on the AI output for any business purpose without independently verifying the information (i.e., by obtaining a copy of the publication and checking the source).
  • All materials submitted to SIA for publication or dissemination may be subject to AI, plagiarism and/or intellectual property rights management detection, and may be accepted or rejected based on the results of the detection. SIA maintains sole discretion in evaluating acceptability of AI-supported and/or AI-generated content.
    • Primary authors and content contributors are responsible for fact-checking AI-generated output to ensure accuracy and alignment with industry standards.
    • If you know or suspect that generated AI content incorporates third-party intellectual property, such as recognizable artistic or literary content, without permissions you are not permitted to use such content in the performance of your duties.
  • You may not attempt to hide or disguise your use of AI, or make any false, deceptive or misleading representation to SIA or any other person or entity about your AI use. For example, you should never attempt to present content, materials, or information that you received from a generative AI tool as your own original work product. You must always disclose the involvement of AI applications in your work.
  • SIA shall offer annual training to employees on this Policy and guidelines for the use of AI, ethical considerations, the potential impact on third-party IP rights and the protection of SIA copyrighted material and other sensitive information.
  • You may not submit or upload any SIA confidential or proprietary information to an AI platform unless the relevant IT personnel have confirmed in writing that the applicable platform is suitable for receipt of such information. Examples of impermissible submissions to AI platforms include, but are not limited to, the following types of information and data:
    • Proprietary source code
    • Trade secrets and other proprietary information
    • Personnel information maintained in human resources records and other nonpublic information about employees
    • Medical information or health records of any individual
    • Bank account numbers, credit card numbers, financial records or any other data or documentation about finances
    • An individual’s name, personal contact information, demographic information, government-issued or other unique identifiers or any other personal information
  • When in doubt, check with your supervisor about whether a particular item of information or communication is appropriate to share with an AI tool.
  • AI output that discloses or describes personal information associated with any individual person must be discarded and may not be used for any business purpose. If you are unsure whether an output contains personal information, please seek clarification from your supervisor.
  • The use of generative AI should not conflict with any American National Standards Institute standards or requirements.
  • AI translation tools may be used as a supplementary resource but must not replace human translation and/or human verification for official communications, legally binding documents or critical content where cultural and contextual accuracy is essential.
  • AI tools are evolving rapidly and should be assessed periodically to ensure they do not produce biased, misleading, problematic or discriminatory content.
  • You shall not use AI for activities that are essential for SIA’s business, such as accounting functions, human resources functions or functions that would result in significant financial impact. AI used to inform decision making must be made with appropriate context and application of human judgement to ensure the usage of AI is appropriate for SIA’s business needs.

Potential Applicable SIA Uses (Not Exhaustive)

Subject to and in accordance with this Policy, AI tools may be used by you for SIA’s business needs for the following activities:

  • Conference program support, including, but is not limited to, personalized attendee experience, agenda development, evaluation criteria, etc.
  • Writing and editing assistance, including by SIA-authored reports by staff, volunteers and vendors, as long as AI is used as a tool and not the primary creator of the content
  • Developing social media content
  • Writing blog posts
  • Transcribing and summarizing committee meetings (e.g., meeting minutes)
  • Analyzing data
  • Marketing, advertising and audience automation
  • Creation of education materials, including interactive elements of trainings
  • Fact checking
  • Graphics and video capture

Select SIA-Approved AI Tools

SIA staff and volunteers are responsible for evaluating the validity and reliability of AI tools and their appropriate uses consistent with this Policy. AI applications may be subject to a wide array of errors, inconsistencies, bugs and other technical issues. You should promptly report all errors, inaccuracies and other problems arising from the use of AI to your supervisor.

Provided in this section are lists of tools SIA currently does and does not permit.  This list is subject to change without notice.

Permitted for SIA Uses (not exhaustive)

PowerPoint Creation
  • Gamma.app
  • Beautiful.ai
Note Taking and Assistants
  • Microsoft Teams native services
    • Transcribe function
  • Zoom native services
    • Zoom AI Companion
  • Otter.ai
  • Fireflies.ai
  • Gong.io
  • Tactiq
General Large Language Models
  • ChatGPT/OpenAI
  • Claude
  • MetaAI
  • Gemini
Writing Assistance
  • Grammarly
  • Microsoft native editors
  • Jasper
  • Anyword

Prohibited for SIA Uses

  • Manus AI
  • DeepSeek AI

All use of other AI programs not listed above must first be discussed with and approved by SIA’s CEO. You should inform the CEO of: 1) the AI application, product, or tool that you would like to use; 2) the purpose for which you would like to use the AI application, product or tool; and 3) whether the AI application, product or tool will be used to generate content for or on behalf of SIA.

Use of AI Is Subject to All Other SIA Policies and Procedures

This Policy is intended to supplement all other SIA policies and guidelines, including policies prohibiting discrimination and harassment, and policies protecting SIA confidential information. Accordingly, the same general principles expressed in SIA’s employee handbook, volunteer conduct standards and other policies and guidelines apply equally to your use of AI in the performance of your job duties.

Monitoring

SIA reserves the right to review and monitor all activity involving AI that occurs using its time, resources and/or infrastructure at its sole discretion. Upon request, individuals are expected to provide information about their use of AI in the performance of their duties, and their work may be reviewed for compliance with this Policy.

Enforcement

  • SIA reserves the right to reject submissions or request revisions and/or explanations by the primary authors to ensure content conforms with this AI Policy.
  • In some cases, SIA may remove content from consideration for nominations, scholarships, conference submissions or other programs based on competitive submissions processes.
  • Violations of this Policy may result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.

Questions

All questions about this Policy, or the use of AI, should be directed to SIA’s chief executive officer.