What the lawsuit alleges
The plaintiffs say OpenAI had no right to collect the information, use it to train large language models, or profit from it. They are seeking compensation for minors whose data the company collected. OpenAI had not immediately responded to a request for comment.
OpenAI’s terms of use prohibit children under 13 from using the service. The lawsuit argues that the company’s age checks do not work and that children cannot be expected to understand legal language in the terms. Other AI safety specialists have made a similar argument about the industry more broadly.
One plaintiff is a 12-year-old Hawaii resident who, according to the lawsuit, created a ChatGPT account earlier this year. The filing says she told the chatbot her age, but it continued to discuss personal topics with her.
Many of the conversations concerned her emotional struggles and dissatisfaction with her appearance. She said she was skipping meals and uploaded photos, asking the chatbot to assess how she looked. When she shared sensitive information, the lawsuit says, ChatGPT called her “brave” and said it was glad she was sharing her difficulties.
The product question behind the case
Paul Yetter, lead counsel for the minor plaintiffs, said OpenAI encourages children to share private thoughts and send images to ChatGPT. If a stranger did the same, he said, it would provoke outrage; when a company does it, it looks like ordinary business practice. Yetter also said children cannot waive their rights without parental consent. He described the lawsuit as an effort to hold OpenAI accountable for building a trillion-dollar business on children’s fears, hopes and secrets obtained without their consent.
Andy Liddell, director of the Austin-based EdTech Law Center, one of several legal centers involved in the case, said the suit is intended to create an incentive for safer product design: having to pay for children’s data could push OpenAI to give safety more attention.
The lawsuit arrives amid fresh doubts about ChatGPT’s teen feature. OpenAI describes it as a safer mode for young users, designed with guidance from mental-health and education specialists. A recent independent review concluded that the feature does not meet its stated promises; OpenAI disputed those findings.
I think the central issue is not whether an under-13 rule appears in the terms, but whether the product behaves as though it knows a child is on the other side of the conversation. The filing alleges that it did know, and continued anyway. What remains unclear is how OpenAI’s teen safeguards handle that gap between a child’s disclosure and the company’s rules—and whether the lawsuit can make that gap costly.
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