{"id":64718,"date":"2026-08-27T10:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T15:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=64718"},"modified":"2026-08-27T10:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T15:04:07","slug":"wapo-they-confided-in-chatgpt-their-secrets-ended-up-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=64718","title":{"rendered":"WaPo: They confided in ChatGPT. Their secrets ended up in court."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WaPo: They confided in ChatGPT. Their secrets ended up in court.<\/a> By Miriam Waldvogel
and Gerrit De Vynck: <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n

The personalized nature of conversations with chatbots, creating an atmosphere of privacy that encourages frank disclosure, can make logs held by AI companies richer than more conventional digital evidence such as search logs, according to legal experts. ‘It\u2019s not just the question, it\u2019s the whole prompt and the background you provided and the back and forth. There\u2019s no guessing at what your thought process is and what you intended, it\u2019s very plain,’ said Michael Price, the litigation director for the Fourth Amendment Center at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. ‘If ever there was a window into the soul to reveal the privacies of life, this seems like a good one,’ he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data released by OpenAI shows requests by government agencies and law enforcement for user data growing rapidly. In the second half of 2025, the company disclosed data from more than 80 accounts, an increase of more than four times as many over the same period the year before. But when chatbot conversations show up in criminal cases, it\u2019s often because the person involved in the chats allowed law enforcement to access them, Price said. When police ask someone to open their phone during questioning or after an arrest, they often do so, allowing officers to scroll through the apps they use, he said. In general, the Fourth Amendment, which protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures of their property, provides the right to refuse a search of the contents of their phone unless police have a warrant. ‘The short answer is that most people consent,’ Price said. They shouldn\u2019t, but they do.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WaPo: They confided in ChatGPT. Their secrets ended up in court. By Miriam Waldvogeland Gerrit De Vynck:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64719,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64718\/revisions\/64719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}