OpenAI adds PIN-protected ChatGPT chats for sensitive conversations
Locked chats give ChatGPT users a way to hide selected conversations from people with access to their phone, while leaving OpenAI’s broader data rules unchanged.
OpenAI has added a ChatGPT feature called locked chats that lets users protect selected conversations with a 4-digit PIN or, on iPhone and Android, Face ID. The feature is meant to stop people nearby or anyone borrowing a phone from seeing those exchanges, but OpenAI says it is not end-to-end encryption and does not change legal access, model-training settings, or data-retention policies. If someone resets the account PIN, all locked chats and any files in that project space are deleted, and OpenAI says the removal cannot be reversed. OpenAI is rolling the feature out gradually, and it will be available to free users as well as Go, Plus and Pro subscribers; voice mode works with it on Android and iOS, but Codex chats cannot be locked.
Why it matters
This changes how private a ChatGPT conversation can be on a shared or borrowed device. It may reduce casual exposure of sensitive messages, but it does not make those chats private in the stronger legal or technical sense, and a PIN reset can permanently erase the locked space. That makes the feature useful for local privacy, not a substitute for broader protections.
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Sources
- Engadget