Finance
OpenAI fights order to turn over millions of ChatGPT conversations
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on November 12, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on November 12, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
OpenAI is challenging a court order to release ChatGPT logs in a copyright lawsuit, citing privacy concerns and arguing the logs contain personal user data.
By Blake Brittain
(Reuters) -OpenAI asked a federal judge in New York on Wednesday to reverse an order that required it to turn over 20 million anonymized ChatGPT chat logs amid a copyright infringement lawsuit by the New York Times and other news outlets, saying it would expose users' private conversations.
The artificial intelligence company argued that turning over the logs would disclose confidential user information and that "99.99%" of the transcripts have nothing to do with the copyright infringement allegations in the case.
"To be clear: anyone in the world who has used ChatGPT in the past three years must now face the possibility that their personal conversations will be handed over to The Times to sift through at will in a speculative fishing expedition," the company said in a court filing.
LAWSUIT CLAIMS OPENAI MISUSED TIMES STORIES
The news outlets argued that the logs were necessary to determine whether ChatGPT reproduced their copyrighted content and to rebut OpenAI's assertion that they "hacked" the chatbot's responses to manufacture evidence. The lawsuit claims OpenAI misused their articles to train ChatGPT to respond to user prompts.
Magistrate Judge Ona Wang said in her order to produce the chats that users' privacy would be protected by the company's "exhaustive de-identification" and other safeguards. OpenAI has a Friday deadline to produce the transcripts.
Spokespeople and attorneys for the New York Times did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
OpenAI Chief Information Security Officer Dane Stuckey said in a blog post on Wednesday that sharing the logs would violate privacy and security protections and "force us to turn over tens of millions of highly personal conversations from people who have no connection to the Times’ baseless lawsuit."
The case is one of many pending lawsuits against tech companies over the alleged misuse of copyrighted work to train AI systems.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in WashingtonEditing by Rod Nickel)
Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines programmed to think and learn like humans, enabling them to perform tasks such as problem-solving and decision-making.
Data protection involves safeguarding personal data from misuse, ensuring privacy, and complying with legal standards to protect individuals' information from unauthorized access or breaches.
Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting systems, networks, and programs from digital attacks, which aim to access, change, or destroy sensitive information.
User privacy refers to the right of individuals to control their personal information and how it is collected, used, and shared by organizations.
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