OpenAI

OpenAI Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Summary

• Product Name: ChatGPT / OpenAI Services
• Publisher/service provider name: OpenAI OpCo, LLC (U.S.) / OpenAI Ireland Limited (EEA/UK/Switzerland)
• Policy document name: OpenAI Terms of Use (1/1/2026) and US Privacy Policy (5/18/2026)

300-word Summary of Privacy Policy/Terms of Use

OpenAI’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy govern the use of ChatGPT, DALL·E, Sora, and related OpenAI consumer services. Users must generally be at least 13 years old and comply with OpenAI’s usage rules and applicable laws. Users retain ownership of their input and generally own the generated output, although outputs may not be unique. OpenAI reserves the right to suspend or terminate accounts for policy violations, misuse, legal compliance, or inactivity.

The privacy policy explains that OpenAI collects a broad range of personal information, including account details, payment information, prompts and uploaded content, communications, device and usage data, cookies, location information, and information from connected services or third parties. OpenAI also collects publicly available internet data and partner-provided data to develop and improve its AI models.

OpenAI uses collected data to operate, secure, personalize, and improve services, train AI models, provide advertising for Free and Go users, conduct analytics and research, and comply with legal obligations. Users may opt out of their content being used for model training, although this may reduce service personalization or effectiveness.

OpenAI shares information with vendors, cloud providers, affiliates, business account administrators, government authorities, marketing partners, and third-party integrations. Shared information may include account data, usage information, uploaded content, and transactional data depending on the service interaction. OpenAI states that it does not “sell” personal data but may engage in targeted advertising or cross-context behavioral advertising for Free and Go users.

Users are provided several privacy controls, including chat deletion, export tools, temporary chats, cookie and advertising controls, model-training opt-outs, and rights requests through OpenAI’s privacy portal. Data retention varies depending on legal, operational, and safety requirements.

Key Phrases Regarding Information Sharing with Others

• “We disclose Personal Data to vendors, service providers, and marketing partners…”
• “We may share your Personal Data… with government authorities, industry peers, or other third parties in compliance with the law…”
• “We disclose Personal Data to our affiliates…”
• “Business account administrators… may access and control your OpenAI account, including being able to access your Content.”
• “We may share limited data with select marketing partners for purposes of promoting our products and services…”
• “You can share information with third-party search and shopping partners.”

Explicit Third Parties / Subprocessors

Name of subprocessor / third party	Purpose of information sharing	Kind of information shared	What information users can opt out of sharing	Directions and/or links for how to opt out
Vendors and service providers	Hosting, cloud services, analytics, payment processing, customer support, safety monitoring, IT services	Account information, usage data, content, transaction data, device data	Model training usage, some cookies, some analytics/marketing sharing	Privacy controls in account settings and privacy.openai.com
Marketing partners	Advertising and measuring ad effectiveness	Limited identifiers, cookies, usage data, purchase data from advertisers	Targeted advertising and cross-context behavioral advertising	Settings > Data Controls or “Your Privacy Choices” link
Government authorities	Legal compliance, fraud prevention, safety, law enforcement requests	Any relevant personal data or content required by law	Generally no opt-out where legally required	Rights requests via privacy.openai.com or dsar@openai.com
Affiliates of OpenAI	Internal operations and service delivery	Personal data consistent with the privacy policy	No explicit opt-out stated	Account privacy controls
Business account administrators	Enterprise/business account management	Account details and user content	Limited if using organizational email/business accounts	Avoid using organization-managed account
Third-party search and shopping partners	User-requested integrations and sharing	Shared conversations, searches, shopping requests, uploaded content	Users control whether to share with integrations	User-controlled through feature settings
Advertisers and data partners	Ad measurement and personalization	Purchase/activity data and identifiers	Personalized advertising	Advertising controls in account settings
Connected services providers	Importing connected-service data into ChatGPT	Connected-service data and uploaded files	Users may disconnect integrations	Manage integrations/settings in account
Parents/guardians of teen users	Safety monitoring and linked accounts	Account settings and safety alerts	Linked accounts can be disconnected	Account linking settings