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   New judges ruling makes OpenAI keeping a record of all your ChatGPT chats one   
   step closer to reality   
      
   Date:   
   Tue, 24 Jun 2025 22:00:00 +0000   
      
   Description:   
   A court maintained a ruling forcing OpenAI to retain all ChatGPT chats after   
   rejecting petitions from users.   
      
   FULL STORY   
      
   OpenAI will be holding onto all of your conversations with ChatGPT and   
   possibly sharing them with a lot of lawyers, even the ones you thought you   
   deleted. That's the upshot of an order from the federal judge overseeing a   
   lawsuit brought against OpenAI by The New York Times over copyright   
   infringement. Judge Ona Wang upheld her earlier order to preserve all ChatGPT   
   conversations for evidence after rejecting a motion by ChatGPT user Aidan   
   Hunt, one of several from ChatGPT users asking her to rescind the order over   
   privacy and other concerns.    
      
   Judge Wang told OpenAI to indefinitely preserve ChatGPTs outputs since the   
   Times pointed out that would be a way to tell if the chatbot has illegally   
   recreated articles without paying the original publishers. But finding those   
   examples means hanging onto every intimate, awkward, or just private   
   communication anyone's had with the chatbot. Though what users write isn't   
   part of the order, it's not hard to imagine working out who was conversing   
   with ChatGPT about what personal topic based on what the AI wrote. In fact,   
   the more personal the discussion, the easier it would probably be to identify   
   the user.    
      
   Hunt pointed out that he had no warning that this might happen until he saw a   
   report about the order in an online forum. and is now concerned that his   
   conversations with ChatGPT might be disseminated, including highly sensitive   
   personal and commercial information. He asked the judge to vacate the order    
   or modify it to leave out especially private content, like conversations   
   conducted in private mode, or when there are medical or legal matters   
   discussed.    
      
   According to Hunt, the judge was overstepping her bounds with the order   
   because this case involves important, novel constitutional questions about    
   the privacy rights incident to artificial intelligence usage  a rapidly   
   developing area of law  and the ability of a magistrate [judge] to institute    
   a nationwide mass surveillance program by means of a discovery order in a   
   civil case.    
      
   Judge Wang rejected his request because they aren't related to the copyright   
   issue at hand. She emphasized that it's about preservation, not disclosure,   
   and that it's hardly unique or uncommon for the courts to tell a private   
   company to hold onto certain records for litigation. Thats technically   
   correct, but, understandably, an everyday person using ChatGPT might not feel   
   that way.    
      
   She also seemed to particularly dislike the mass surveillance accusation,   
   quoting that section of Hunt's petition and slamming it with the legal   
   language equivalent of a diss track. Judge Wang added a "[sic]" to the quote   
   from Hunt's filing and a footnote pointing out that the petition "does not   
   explain how a courts document retention order that directs the preservation,   
   segregation, and retention of certain privately held data by a private    
   company for the limited purposes of litigation is, or could be, a nationwide   
   mass surveillance program. It is not. The judiciary is not a law enforcement   
   agency."    
      
   That 'sic burn' aside, there's still a chance the order will be rescinded or   
   modified after OpenAI goes to court this week to push back against it as part   
   of the larger paperwork battle around the lawsuit.   
      
   Deleted but not gone    
      
   Hunt's other concern is that, regardless of how this case goes, OpenAI will   
   now have the ability to retain chats that users believed were deleted and   
   could use them in the future. There are concerns over whether OpenAI will    
   lean into protecting user privacy over legal expedience. OpenAI has so far   
   argued in favor of that privacy and has asked the court for oral arguments to   
   challenge the retention order that will take place this week. The company has   
   said it wants to push back hard on behalf of its users. But in the meantime,   
   your chat logs are in limbo.    
      
   Many may have felt that writing into ChatGPT is like talking to a friend who   
   can keep a secret. Perhaps more will now understand that it still acts like a   
   computer program, and the equivalent of your browser history and Google    
   search terms are still in there. At the very least, hopefully, there will be   
   more transparency. Even if it's the courts demanding that AI companies retain   
   sensitive data, users should be notified by the companies. We shouldn't   
   discover it by chance on a web forum.    
      
   And if OpenAI really wants to protect its users, it could start offering more   
   granular controls: clear toggles for anonymous mode, stronger deletion   
   guarantees, and alerts when conversations are being preserved for legal   
   reasons. Until then, it might be wise to treat ChatGPT a bit less like a   
   therapist and a bit more like a coworker who might be wearing a wire.   
      
   ======================================================================   
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/new-judges-ruling-   
   makes-openai-keeping-a-record-of-all-your-chatgpt-chats-one-step-closer-to-rea   
   lity   
      
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