GitHub Copilot Interaction Data Usage Policy Update
Author: Mario Rodriguez, Chief Product Officer
Date: March 25, 2026
Published: GitHub Blog - Company News
Key Policy Changes
Starting April 24, 2026, GitHub will use interaction data from Copilot Free, Pro, and Pro+ users to train AI models, unless users explicitly opt out.
According to the announcement: “interaction data — specifically inputs, outputs, code snippets, and associated context” will be leveraged for model improvement.
Data Collection Details
The policy permits collection of the following data types:
- Code outputs users accept or modify
- Inputs and code snippets sent to Copilot
- File context and repository structure information
- User feedback via ratings
- Chat and inline suggestion interactions
Important Exclusions
The program explicitly does NOT use data from:
- Copilot Business or Enterprise users
- Users who have opted out via account settings
- Content from private repositories “at rest”
Rodriguez notes: “Microsoft interaction data indicate we can improve model performance across diverse use cases,” serving as the stated rationale for this expansion.
User Control
Users retain full control through opt-out settings. Those who previously disabled data collection will maintain their preferences unless they actively choose to participate. The opt-out option is available in GitHub account settings under Copilot preferences.
Data Sharing
The company plans to share collected data with Microsoft affiliates but explicitly excludes third-party AI providers.
Context: Plan Changes
GitHub also announced on April 20, 2026, that new sign-ups for Copilot Pro, Copilot Pro+, and student plans are temporarily paused. Significant modifications to Copilot Individual plans include stricter usage limits and alterations to model availability.
The agentic capabilities expansion has dramatically increased compute demands, with users now able to engage in long-running and parallelized coding sessions that frequently exceed resource capacity under the previous plan structure.
GitHub Copilot CLI Updates
GitHub Copilot CLI v1.0.34 was released on April 20, 2026, with improvements to rate limit error messaging. Additional CLI releases in mid-April included:
- Support for short session ID prefixes
- Model auto-selection
- Usage limit warnings