When OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in late 2022, the AI service had no privacy features. That is, you could not prevent the data in your prompts from being used to train the large language models that powered ChatGPT.
It took several months and pressure from regulators for OpenAI to implement its first privacy controls in ChatGPT. And back then, it was a pretty terrible implementation. You had to either agree to allow your data to be used in training the chatbot, or disagree and have all history turned off.
Eventually, OpenAI offered ChatGPT users the option of opting out of training the model and keeping their history. That’s what I did in early November, but this key ChatGPT privacy setting wasn’t obvious. You had to hunt it down and then specifically ask OpenAI to stop using your data to train its models.
Fast-forward to late April 2024, and OpenAI made a big upgrade to ChatGPT privacy that we all nearly missed. The company now gives users the feature I always wanted. I can keep my chat history and prevent ChatGPT from using the data for training.
OpenAI revealed the new privacy features on X, without a formal announcement. That’s why I and so many others overlooked it, especially since it came right after OpenAI’s big memory upgrade for ChatGPT.
The company says the new privacy feature applies to both ChatGPT Free and Plus users:
