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ChatGPT Users Could Have Deleted Conversations Read Amid Lawsuit

Originally posted on Men's Journal | By Mike Moraitis | Last updated Jul 3, 2025 12:39 PM ET

ChatGPT users could soon have news organizations digging through their conversations with the popular artificial intelligence program, and even through ones that have been deleted.

According to Ashley Belanger of Ars Technica, the company behind the AI program, OpenAI, attempted to fight a court order forcing it to retain all logs, including deleted and temporary ones, but failed.

The order to keep the logs was issued by magistrate judge Ona Wang and was requested by The New York Times and other news outlets, as well as authors who are suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement.

The lawsuit accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of using copyrighted works to train their AI programs, ChatGPT and Copilot, respectively, "without consent or compensation."

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Initially, there were a total of 12 copyright cases in all, but they have since been consolidated into one.

Companies have argued that they can use the copyrighted works to train AI programs under the doctrine of "fair use."

OpenAI has vowed to continue fighting the order, a spokesperson told Ars Technica, although the company's options appear to be very limited.

The belief is that it will be impossible for the plaintiffs in the case to sift through all of the ChatGPT logs, so the expectation is that only a small amount of the information will actually be accessed.

A negotiation between the defendants and plaintiffs is currently underway to determine how that process will take place. The logs aren't considered the most important part of the plaintiffs' case, but could help it.

This article first appeared on Men's Journal and was syndicated with permission.

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