A mother of two is suing OpenAI in a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges the company “stole” valuable data from millions of young users without their consent.
The anonymous mother, whose children are 12 and 16, resides in Hawaii. Both children signed up for ChatGPT accounts in early 2026 without parental permission.
OpenAI requires, but doesn’t actively check, that a child has sought their parents’ permission. Its terms of service prohibit minors younger than 13 from using ChatGPT, though many do regardless.
“OpenAI manipulates children into sharing their most private thoughts and images with ChatGPT,” said lead counsel Paul Yetter of Yetter Coleman. “If some stranger did this to a child, there would be outrage.”
The complaint alleges that ChatGPT “purposely extracted” sensitive personal information from both children, including emotional insecurities, relationship concerns, and selfies. It broadly argues that OpenAI “exploits” minor users through design features like speaking in first person, mirroring communication style, possessing memory to build on past chats, and being sycophantic, or overly flattering and agreeable.
“For years, it wrongfully has extracted vast amounts of highly sensitive and valuable data from millions of children,” the complaint says of OpenAI. “It had no right to take this information, but it took it anyway. It then used that priceless trove of children’s information to train large language models, build detailed profiles of children, and enrich itself.”
OpenAI recently sought a valuation of $1.4 trillion as it prepares to go public, according to Bloomberg Law.
“We strongly disagree with this misguided lawsuit that singles out OpenAI despite the industry-leading age-specific protections we’ve built into our product,” OpenAI told Bloomberg News. “This risks pushing teens toward products with fewer safeguards or reduced parental controls.”
The company made the same claim last week when the Youth AI Safety Institute at Common Sense Media called on OpenAI to pause ChatGPT for Teens after identifying safety problems and product concerns through independent testing.
OpenAI disputed those findings and suggested they could steer teens toward products with fewer safety protections.
In a separate announcement, OpenAI recently said that teens spend under 15 minutes a day on ChatGPT, on average. The company also said users with access to ChatGPT for Teens, which launched in August, sent 2.7 million more learning-related messages on average than those without the product.
The complaint filed Tuesday asks the court to award each class member a share of OpenAI equity, or its cash value. The amount would be determined by how much data OpenAI extracted from each child in the proposed class.
Topics Artificial Intelligence Social Good ChatGPT OpenAI
Rebecca Ruiz is a Senior Reporter at Mashable. She frequently covers mental health, digital culture, and technology. Her areas of expertise include suicide prevention, screen use and mental health, parenting, youth well-being, and meditation and mindfulness. Rebecca’s experience prior to Mashable includes working as a staff writer, reporter, and editor at NBC News Digital and as a staff writer at Forbes. Rebecca has a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and a masters degree from U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
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