Sunday, 20 April, 2025

ChatGPT's Unprompted Use of User Names Raises Privacy Concerns

Some users of OpenAI's o3 and o4-mini models report that ChatGPT is addressing them by name without prior disclosure or enabled personalization settings. This unexpected behavior, where the AI uses names in reasoning traces yet denies knowing them when asked, has been described as "creepy" and "confusing." The issue has sparked renewed discussions about AI transparency and user data privacy.