OpenAI Faces Class Action Lawsuit: ChatGPT User Data Allegedly Flows to Meta and Google

OpenAI recently faced a class action lawsuit in California federal court, accused of leaking ChatGPT users' query content, account identifiers, and email addresses to Meta and Google via embedded tracking codes without explicit user consent. The lawsuit covers all U.S. users who used ChatGPT.com.

The complaint cites a Cyberhaven report stating that about 1% of data pasted into ChatGPT by employees is confidential. Plaintiffs extend this to personal user scenarios—many people consult ChatGPT on sensitive issues like health and finance, and should have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Similar cases include Perplexity AI being sued earlier this year for the same behavior.

This lawsuit is unfavorable to OpenAI's IPO plans, as the company has missed its annual revenue and user targets. Privacy regulators in regions like Europe (GDPR complaints) and Japan are also increasing scrutiny, with the data collection boundaries of AI services becoming a focus of regulation and litigation.