You might tell an AI chatbot secrets that you wouldn’t divulge to your closest friends. If you do, though, beware: They could end up as evidence in court.
An article in the Washington Post this week highlighted several cases in which people had discussed sensitive information with AI systems like Claude and ChatGPT, only to have their conversations obtained by prosecutors or opposing lawyers.
Lawyers can get access to your chatbot conversations from AI services like ChatGPT because they aren’t privileged in the same way that, say, a conversation with your lawyer or a doctor would be.
Reporters at the paper found chatbot logs cited in 12 court cases in the past two years. They also found statistics from OpenAI that supported a rising trend in data disclosures. The company, which operates ChatGPT, disclosed the content of more than 80 user accounts in the last six months of 2025. That was more than four times as many as in the second half of 2024.
Cases are piling up
