Detecting Training Data For Large Language Models: A Survey

As large language models (LLMs) continue to evolve, the scope and diversity of data used for training are expanding significantly. However, the training dataset of LLMs may inevitably contain sensitive information such as personal data or copyrighted material, leading to privacy leakage or copyright infringement risks if the model generates highly similar or identical text to these sources. This has drawn attention to the issue of detecting whether the text data is used for LLM training. To date, research on detecting training data usage in artificial intelligence (AI) models has mainly focused on traditional machine learning (ML) models. However, studies on LLMs remain relatively immature. The lack of understanding of research progress in this area has hindered the development of more effective detection methods. Therefore, this article aims to address this gap by conducting the analysis of detecting training data for LLM. Specifically, we analyze the available LLM’s information to the detector, the main detection methods, determination metrics, and discuss the technical challenges and potential directions for future research in this field.

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Journal
ACM Computing Surveys
Published
2026-01-07
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3779430
Primary Topic
Authorship Attribution and Profiling
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article
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article

Detecting Training Data For Large Language Models: A Survey

Hongyang Du, Congcheng Gong, Dusit Niyato, Junyi Li et al.
ACM Computing Surveys
Authorship Attribution and Profiling
article

Detecting Training Data For Large Language Models: A Survey

Hongyang Du, Congcheng Gong, Dusit Niyato, Junyi Li, Shulin LAN, Chen Yang, Liehuang Zhu, Yingchao Wang, Xingshan Yao
article en

Abstract

As large language models (LLMs) continue to evolve, the scope and diversity of data used for training are expanding significantly. However, the training dataset of LLMs may inevitably contain sensitive information such as personal data or copyrighted material, leading to privacy leakage or copyright infringement risks if the model generates highly similar or identical text to these sources. This has drawn attention to the issue of detecting whether the text data is used for LLM training. To date, research on detecting training data usage in artificial intelligence (AI) models has mainly focused on traditional machine learning (ML) models. However, studies on LLMs remain relatively immature. The lack of understanding of research progress in this area has hindered the development of more effective detection methods. Therefore, this article aims to address this gap by conducting the analysis of detecting training data for LLM. Specifically, we analyze the available LLM’s information to the detector, the main detection methods, determination metrics, and discuss the technical challenges and potential directions for future research in this field.

ACM Computing SurveysVol. 58(9)
Beijing Institute of Technology (CN), Nanyang Technological University (SG), University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), University of Hong Kong (HK)
Quality Education
Openalex Percentile: Top 96%
Authorship Attribution and Profiling
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Detecting Training Data For Large Language Models: A Survey — Hongyang Du, Congcheng Gong, et al. · ACM Computing Surveys (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS