Court orders OpenAI to keep all ChatGPT chats, even deleted ones

A federal judge in New York has ordered OpenAI to keep every ChatGPT conversation, including ones users have deleted. Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang issued the order on May 13. It stays in place until the court says otherwise.

What changed

The order grew out of lawsuits from news groups, including The New York Times. Judge Wang told 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 plain terms, OpenAI must set aside records it would normally erase.

The news groups say deleted chats could show people getting around paywalls by asking ChatGPT to summarize articles. OpenAI says that idea is speculative. It calls the order sweeping and unprecedented, says it would force big changes to its data systems, and warns it could even push the company to break its own privacy policies.

The ruling came weeks ago but only became widely known once OpenAI began fighting it. The company is now demanding oral arguments to try to block it. It touches potentially every ChatGPT user, and it landed the same week OpenAI gave free users its Memory feature, which remembers past conversations.

What is not known yet

It is unclear whether the judge will change or lift the order. If it stands, ChatGPT users should assume all of their conversations are being kept. Until the court decides, avoid typing private or sensitive details into the chatbot.