Thousands of ChatGPT Chats Accidentally Made Public

Thousands of ChatGPT users were shocked to find out that their private chats became publicly visible on Google searches.

OpenAI quickly pulled the controversial feature which allowed chats to be indexed by search engines, but the event triggered widespread user privacy concerns.

Fast Company first reported the issue, uncovering more than 4,000 ChatGPT chats accessible via a simple Google search. These conversations exposed personal information, including mental health concerns, drug use, family issues, and trauma. Even though the chats did not display usernames, the included details sometimes made it possible to identify individuals.

The problem stemmed from a small checkbox labeled “Make this chat discoverable” that appeared when users clicked “Share.” Many were confused, and misunderstood this option, as a brief and lightly formatted note at the bottom gave insufficient explanation about the consequences.

ArsTechnica reports that OpenAI’s Chief Information Security Officer Dane Stuckey said on X that only users who opted in had their chats indexed, calling the experiment “short-lived.” Still, he admitted the feature “introduced too many opportunities for folks to accidentally share things they didn’t intend to.”

AI ethicist Carissa Véliz criticized the practice: “I’m just shocked. That Google is logging in these extremely sensitive conversations is just astonishing,” as reported by Fast Company. She added, “It’s also further confirmation that this company, OpenAI, is not trustworthy, that they don’t take privacy seriously, no matter what they say.”

A Google spokesperson told Ars Technica that indexing depends on what publishers make public: “Neither Google nor any other search engine controls what pages are made public on the web.”

Cybersecurity expert Rachel Tobac warned, “People expect they can use tools like ChatGPT completely privately, but the reality is that many users aren’t fully grasping that these platforms have features that could unintentionally leak their most private questions, stories, and fears,” as reported by Fast Company.

OpenAI has promised to remove exposed chats from search engines and restore user trust.