After court order, OpenAI is now preserving all ChatGPT user logs, including deleted chats, sensitive chats, etc.

[usonian]

FAFO, OpenAI users.

The title is the entire content of a Lauren Weinstein Mastodon post.

Here's the background. T'is a twisted web we weave when we trust OpenAI with our secrets.

OpenAI slams court order to save all ChatGPT logs, including deleted chats
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/06/openai-says-court-forcing-it-to-save-all-chatgpt-logs-is-a-privacy-nightmare/#comments

OpenAI is now fighting a court order to preserve all ChatGPT user logs—including deleted chats and sensitive chats logged through its API business offering—after news organizations suing over copyright claims accused the AI company of destroying evidence.

"Before OpenAI had an opportunity to respond to those unfounded accusations, the court ordered OpenAI to 'preserve and segregate all output log data that would otherwise be deleted on a going forward basis until further order of the Court (in essence, the output log data that OpenAI has been destroying)," OpenAI explained in a court filing demanding oral arguments in a bid to block the controversial order.

In the filing, OpenAI alleged that the court rushed the order based only on a hunch raised by The New York Times and other news plaintiffs. And now, without "any just cause," OpenAI argued, the order "continues to prevent OpenAI from respecting its users’ privacy decisions." That risk extended to users of ChatGPT Free, Plus, and Pro, as well as users of OpenAI’s application programming interface (API), OpenAI said.

The court order came after news organizations expressed concern that people using ChatGPT to skirt paywalls "might be more likely to 'delete all [their] searches' to cover their tracks," OpenAI explained. Evidence to support that claim, news plaintiffs argued, was missing from the record because so far, OpenAI had only shared samples of chat logs that users had agreed that the company could retain. Sharing the news plaintiffs' concerns, the judge, Ona Wang, ultimately agreed that OpenAI likely would never stop deleting that alleged evidence absent a court order, granting news plaintiffs' request to preserve all chats.

What to do?

People may choose to delete chat logs that contain their private thoughts, OpenAI said, as well as sensitive information, like financial data from balancing the house budget or intimate details from workshopping wedding vows. And for business users connecting to OpenAI's API, the stakes may be even higher, as their logs may contain their companies' most confidential data, including trade secrets and privileged business information.

[getagrip_already]

1. My company has a prohibition against using ai bots....

For just this reason. We cant put anything with company info into chatgpt or any other ai agent.

Especially code samples.

Any company that did is foolish.

[highplainsdem]

2. Wow. This is huge news in AI. Thanks, usonian!

To be honest, I've never trusted OpenAI or any other tech company either to delete what they say they'll delete, or to refrain from using the data they get for AI training.

These are, after all, companies that stole all the intellectual property they could, and continue to do so, and are fighting like hell to avoid telling courts and the public what's in the training data.

Plus I'm sure they'd like the option of deleting any chatbot conversations that led to users or others being harmed.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out...