Does ChatGPT save your data? Here’s what you need to know

Time is money and chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat have become valuable tools. They can write code, summarize long emails, and even find patterns in large amounts of data. However, as is the case with any free-to-use technology, you may be wondering about the privacy implications of it all. More specifically, does ChatGPT save your data and can you trust it?

So in this article, let’s break down ChatGPT’s data storage practices and explain how it handles your sensitive data. We will also explain in detail how to permanently delete your data from ChatGPT and OpenAI’s servers.

Yes, OpenAI saves your ChatGPT conversations and prompts for future analysis. According to an FAQ page published by the company, its employees can review select chats for security. In other words, you cannot assume that anything you say to ChatGPT is kept private or confidential.

In addition to prompts and chat conversations, OpenAI also saves other data when you use ChatGPT. This includes your name and email as well as account details such as approximate location, IP address, payment details and device information. Most websites collect this data for analytics purposes, so it is not unique to ChatGPT. However, this does mean that OpenAI can hand over your ChatGPT conversations and other data to the courts or law enforcement.

How does ChatGPT use my data?

According to OpenAI, its in-house AI trainers can access your ChatGPT conversations for training purposes. Like any machine learning-based technology, OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 language models were trained on billions of existing text samples. However, these can be further improved through a process called fine-tuning, which involves re-training the model on a smaller dataset (such as user chats).

We already know that OpenAI has done some pretty decent performance on models since admitting to hiring humans to simulate ideal chat conversations. Now that the chatbot is widely available, it’s only logical that the company will continue to collect user data to train and improve ChatGPT. If you do not want your data to be used for training, you can opt-out but this is a manual process which involves filling up a form.

OpenAI lets anyone use ChatGPT for free, even though generating the response costs the company a lot of money. So naturally, you can assume that OpenAI has found a way to sell or monetize your data. Fortunately, it is not so. According to the OpenAI support page, your ChatGPT conversations are not shared for marketing purposes.

As for how OpenAI stores ChatGPT data, the company says that its systems are located in the US. The company requires anyone accessing your data to sign confidentiality agreements and maintain other security obligations.

So how does a small startup like OpenAI serve millions of users without selling their saved data? In early 2023, Microsoft invests $10 billion in OpenAI. The company already uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model for many of its services, including Bing Chat. We also know that ChatGPT exclusively uses Microsoft’s Azure cloud servers to generate responses.

From all this, we can infer that OpenAI’s server costs are subsidized, which allows the company to continue offering ChatGPT for free. In the future, ChatGPT Plus and other revenue sources could help OpenAI make a profit without selling user data.

In the few months since ChatGPT was first available to the public, it has already been the victim of a few data leaks.

In one example, a software bug Some users started seeing others’ chat titles when they logged in. Fortunately, the bug did not expose full chat history or other sensitive data. It wasn’t even the only leak — another revealed the last four digits of some users’ saved credit cards. These events indicate a tangible risk if ChatGPT does indeed save all user data.

OpenAI has so far managed to keep entire chat records reasonably private and away from prying eyes. But this may change at any time in the future if it becomes a victim of a data breach or intrusion. After all, we’ve seen successful attacks carried out against security-conscious companies like LastPass.

To that end, you shouldn’t share sensitive personal information, trade secrets, or medical data with rival chatbots like ChatGPT or Google Bard. In fact, many companies have explicitly cracked down on chatbots for this very reason. For example, Samsung Semiconductor reportedly discovered that its employees had shared confidential information with ChatGPT. It has now imposed a character limit on ChatGPT signals, making it more difficult to reveal company secrets.

It is possible that you are not aware that till now ChatGPT saves your conversations and signals. So is there any way to clear all your interactions with the chatbot? Well, clearing your history only removes the data from your view when you’re logged into your ChatGPT account. It doesn’t actually delete anything from OpenAI’s servers.

For now, the only way to permanently delete your ChatGPT data is to close your OpenAI account. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open the OpenAI Platform page and log in to the ChatGPT account you want to delete.
2. click on Help button in the top right of your screen (highlighted in the screenshot above).
3. switch on messages tab and click on “Send us a message”.
   Finally, click on the button that reads Delete Account.
4. You should get a warning message that you will not be able to create an account again in the future. If you still want to proceed, click delete my account,

Once OpenAI completes the deletion process, all your ChatGPT data and conversations should be permanently deleted. Keep in mind that this process can take up to one to two weeks. If you do not wish to log in or visit the Support section, you may also send an account closure request to delete@openai.com.