diff --git a/private_gpt/components/ingest/ingest_component.py b/private_gpt/components/ingest/ingest_component.py
index 122679f9..674d770f 100644
--- a/private_gpt/components/ingest/ingest_component.py
+++ b/private_gpt/components/ingest/ingest_component.py
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ class BaseIngestComponent(abc.ABC):
         self,
         file_name: str,
         file_data: Path,
-        file_metadata: dict[str, str] | None = None,
+        file_metadata: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
     ) -> list[Document]:
         pass
 
@@ -126,7 +126,7 @@ class SimpleIngestComponent(BaseIngestComponentWithIndex):
         self,
         file_name: str,
         file_data: Path,
-        file_metadata: dict[str, str] | None = None,
+        file_metadata: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
     ) -> list[Document]:
         logger.info("Ingesting file_name=%s", file_name)
         documents = IngestionHelper.transform_file_into_documents(
@@ -191,7 +191,7 @@ class BatchIngestComponent(BaseIngestComponentWithIndex):
         self,
         file_name: str,
         file_data: Path,
-        file_metadata: dict[str, str] | None = None,
+        file_metadata: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
     ) -> list[Document]:
         logger.info("Ingesting file_name=%s", file_name)
         documents = IngestionHelper.transform_file_into_documents(
@@ -281,7 +281,7 @@ class ParallelizedIngestComponent(BaseIngestComponentWithIndex):
         self,
         file_name: str,
         file_data: Path,
-        file_metadata: dict[str, str] | None = None,
+        file_metadata: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
     ) -> list[Document]:
         logger.info("Ingesting file_name=%s", file_name)
         # Running in a single (1) process to release the current
@@ -489,7 +489,7 @@ class PipelineIngestComponent(BaseIngestComponentWithIndex):
         self,
         file_name: str,
         file_data: Path,
-        file_metadata: dict[str, str] | None = None,
+        file_metadata: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
     ) -> list[Document]:
         documents = IngestionHelper.transform_file_into_documents(
             file_name, file_data, file_metadata
diff --git a/private_gpt/components/ingest/ingest_helper.py b/private_gpt/components/ingest/ingest_helper.py
index 9ff2e685..4ac358a9 100644
--- a/private_gpt/components/ingest/ingest_helper.py
+++ b/private_gpt/components/ingest/ingest_helper.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import logging
 from pathlib import Path
+from typing import Any
 
 from llama_index.core.readers import StringIterableReader
 from llama_index.core.readers.base import BaseReader
@@ -69,7 +70,7 @@ class IngestionHelper:
 
     @staticmethod
     def transform_file_into_documents(
-        file_name: str, file_data: Path, file_metadata: dict[str, str] | None = None
+        file_name: str, file_data: Path, file_metadata: dict[str, Any] | None = None
     ) -> list[Document]:
         documents = IngestionHelper._load_file_to_documents(file_name, file_data)
         for document in documents:
diff --git a/private_gpt/server/ingest/ingest_router.py b/private_gpt/server/ingest/ingest_router.py
index cda60ee7..d9136be7 100644
--- a/private_gpt/server/ingest/ingest_router.py
+++ b/private_gpt/server/ingest/ingest_router.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-from typing import Literal
+import json
+from typing import Any, Literal
 
 from fastapi import APIRouter, Depends, Form, HTTPException, Request, UploadFile
 from pydantic import BaseModel, Field
@@ -20,7 +21,7 @@ class IngestTextBody(BaseModel):
             "Chinese martial arts."
         ]
     )
-    metadata: dict[str, str] = Field(
+    metadata: dict[str, Any] = Field(
         None,
         examples=[
             {
@@ -55,6 +56,7 @@ def ingest_file(
 
     metadata: Optional metadata to be associated with the file.
     You do not have to specify this field if not needed.
+    The metadata needs to be in JSON format.
     e.g. {"title": "Avatar: The Last Airbender", "year": "2005"}
 
     The context obtained from files is later used in
@@ -74,7 +76,7 @@ def ingest_file(
     if file.filename is None:
         raise HTTPException(400, "No file name provided")
 
-    metadata_dict = None if metadata is None else eval(metadata)
+    metadata_dict = None if metadata is None else json.loads(metadata)
     ingested_documents = service.ingest_bin_data(
         file.filename, file.file, metadata_dict
     )
diff --git a/tests/fixtures/ingest_helper.py b/tests/fixtures/ingest_helper.py
index 4e6155ae..ab794667 100644
--- a/tests/fixtures/ingest_helper.py
+++ b/tests/fixtures/ingest_helper.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import json
 from pathlib import Path
+from typing import Any
 
 import pytest
 from fastapi.testclient import TestClient
@@ -19,7 +20,9 @@ class IngestHelper:
         ingest_result = IngestResponse.model_validate(response.json())
         return ingest_result
 
-    def ingest_file_with_metadata(self, path: Path, metadata: dict) -> IngestResponse:
+    def ingest_file_with_metadata(
+        self, path: Path, metadata: dict[str, Any]
+    ) -> IngestResponse:
         files = {
             "file": (path.name, path.open("rb")),
             "metadata": (None, json.dumps(metadata)),