Artificial Intelligence (AI) models like ChatGPT are often presented as powerful assistants. But in what feels like a private conversation, how can users be sure their data is safe?
Recent report (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/oddest-chatgpt-leaks-yet-cringey-chat-logs-found-in-google-analytics-tool/) highlight yet another significant data privacy failure from OpenAI: sensitive, personal conversations from ChatGPT have been leaking into Google’s Search Console. This incident not only raises alarms about data handling but adds to a growing list of concerns, forcing businesses and users to ask a critical question: Should OpenAI be trusted with confidential data?
What Exactly Happened?
According to reports, webmasters—the people who manage websites—began noticing strange queries appearing in their Google Search Console. This tool normally shows what keywords people typed into Google to find their site.
Instead of typical short phrases, website owners started seeing extremely long, detailed, and often highly personal prompts. These included sensitive requests for help with relationship issues, confidential business plans, and other private matters.
It is suspected that when ChatGPT needs to find current information, it performs a Google search. In this process, the AI was mistakenly sending the user’s entire private prompt as the search query. This private data was then shared with Google and, in turn, became visible to any website owner whose site appeared in those search results.
The “Mechanical Turk” Behind the Curtain
This situation is reminiscent of the ‘Mechanical Turk’, a famous 18th-century chess-playing machine. It amazed audiences by seemingly playing chess all on its own, but it was later revealed to be an elaborate hoax with a human chess master hidden inside.
Whilst modern AI is not a hoax, this leak pulls back the curtain. It shows that even one of the world’s most advanced AIs is not a standalone intelligence. Instead, it is reliant on an external process: scraping Google for human-created content. More importantly, it shows that the “plumbing” connecting the AI to the web is insecure, leaking private data in the process.
A Familiar Story of Data Leaks
For OpenAI, this is a disturbingly familiar story. This is not the first or second time the company has faced a data leak. The platform’s default settings often involve using user inputs to train future models, a practice that came under scrutiny following a significant data leak at Samsung, where employees inadvertently uploaded sensitive source code while using ChatGPT.
Furthermore, like many large technology platforms, OpenAI has experienced security vulnerabilities that have reportedly led to the exposure of user data. This latest incident, where private prompts became public search suggestions, is simply one more failure in a pattern of poor data governance.
Evaluating Trust: A Look at OpenAI’s Track Record
When evaluating any third-party service provider, it is prudent to consider its history and business practices. Several reported events and corporate decisions concerning OpenAI have led to discussions around its trustworthiness. As we’ve explored previously in our post, Can You Trust OpenAI ChatGPT?, this pattern raises significant questions.
To put it in more personal terms, consider an old friendship. Imagine this friend initially said one thing but then did another, changing the rules of your friendship to benefit themselves. Suppose they then took secrets you told them in confidence and shared them with others, and even took your homework—your intellectual property—and sold it to others for their own gain. If this happened multiple times, would you still trust them? A similar level of scrutiny should be applied when entrusting a company with your valuable data.
Conclusion: Approach AI with Extreme Caution
This ChatGPT data leak reveals two critical things. First, AI’s reliance on web search proves that as long as humans create new content, the web will remain the primary source of real-time knowledge.
Second, and more importantly, it confirms that AI platforms must be treated with the same (or greater) level of security scrutiny as any other third-party vendor. The convenience they offer cannot come at the cost of your organisation’s confidential data. A pattern of data leaks and questionable practices suggests that trusting these platforms by default is a significant risk.
Navigating the security implications of new technology is challenging. If your organisation is exploring how to use AI tools securely, or needs to develop a framework for third-party risk management, contact the expert team at Vertex.