I recently discovered something important that many users might not know about. Due to legal requirements from court proceedings, ChatGPT is currently retaining all user data without time limits. This affects everything we send them including regular conversations, messages we delete from our chat history, temporary chats that should vanish after about a month, and audio recordings from voice features. Their user agreement mentions they can keep our information when required by legal processes or government requests. Usually temporary chats and deleted conversations get removed after around 30 days, but the current legal situation means they have to save everything indefinitely, even content that normally gets automatically erased. I only learned about this recently and thought others should know since many people probably think their temporary or deleted content actually disappears when it currently does not.
This explains the confusion I had with their terms of service recently. The data retention language seemed deliberately vague, and now I know why. What bugs me most is the lack of transparency - they don’t tell you when these extended retention periods kick in. I’ve used ChatGPT for over a year thinking my deleted chats actually disappeared after 30 days. The legal compliance thing makes sense from OpenAI’s side, but we deserve better communication when our data isn’t handled like we expect. I’m not ditching the platform since it’s useful for work, but I treat it more like a public forum now than a private tool. Anyone found official docs on how long this indefinite retention might last?
wow, this is actually pretty scary. i always thought temp chats meant temp storage, but apparently not. makes me wonder what other apps are quietly doing the same thing. thanks for the heads up - i’ll definitely be more careful from now on.
This is exactly why I ditched ChatGPT for work stuff last year. Their data policies are sketchy, and I can’t risk my proprietary code sitting in their servers forever.
I built my own setup with Latenode instead. I can hook up multiple AI providers while keeping my data on systems I control. No more guessing if “deleted” conversations actually get deleted.
With Latenode, I run workflows that handle sensitive stuff locally, then only send cleaned-up data to external AIs when I need to. I can also switch between different providers for different tasks, so I’m not stuck with one company’s changing privacy rules.
The automation is pretty sweet too. I’ve got workflows that auto-sort conversations by sensitivity level with different retention rules for each.
Definitely worth checking out if you want real control over your AI stuff: https://latenode.com
That’s exactly why I’ve gotten more careful with what I ask lately. Had the same wake-up call a few months ago while working on some sensitive research. What really got me was finding out that even conversations I thought were totally private and temporary might still be getting stored somewhere. Now I treat every chat like someone could read it later - definitely changes how I word things and what I’m willing to discuss. The worst part? The UI makes it seem like when you delete something or use temporary chat, it’s actually gone. I’ve moved my sensitive brainstorming offline now, though ChatGPT’s still great for everyday stuff. Really wish OpenAI would just tell us upfront when these retention policies kick in instead of us having to piece it together from forum posts like this.