Incident·WS-0045·Jul 2025·disclosed Jul 31, 2025 (16 days later)·in the wild·Privacy & data leaks
Private ChatGPT conversations turn up in Google search
35/100
WS-2 ModerateHarm score 50, signal score 16. Autonomy: tool (a person misused it). How the scores work.
Harm 2/5
damage actually done
Reach 3/5
who was affected
Autonomy 0/4
how much the AI did on its own
Novelty 2/5
how new the behavior was
Permanence 3/5
how hard it is to undo
Conversations that users had shared with an opt-in discoverability checkbox were indexed by search engines, exposing content such as mental-health disclosures, job-applicant evaluations and proprietary code. OpenAI removed the feature within hours of press coverage, calling it a short-lived experiment.
Damage
unquantified; sensitive personal and business content publicly searchable
Sources
TechCrunch, second source. Removal announced 31 Jul; disabled 1 Aug 2025. Count of indexed chats not verified.
Factor ratings and the score are this index’s judgments by a published formula; facts, dates and figures come from the linked sources. Where a lawsuit is pending, the summary reports allegations, not findings.
