In April last year, OpenAI had unveiled the option of turning off chat history in ChatGPT after concerns emerged about its data being used for training purposes. OpenAI’s privacy policy had earlier said that the company might collect personal information, such as name, email address, and payment details, for legitimate business purposes. This had raised many eyebrows and a section of people even started arguing about OpenAI using customers’ data in order to train its product. The Italian government had also banned ChatGPT for the same reason, alleging that it ‘unlawfully collects users’ data’. And now, the AI chatbot has taken another step in the direction of safeguarding users’ privacy.
In a post on X, OpenAI announced that users can now store chat history on ChatGPT without needing to worry about their data being used for training. In other words, even if you toggle ChatGPT’s conversation history on, it won’t use your data for training purposes, as per OpenAI. This new feature is for free as well as paid users.
“We’re updating our data controls for ChatGPT Free and Plus users. Now, you can access your chat history regardless of whether you’re opted into training for model improvement. If you’ve previously opted out, your choice will remain. Available on web today, and mobile soon,” the company’s post read.
In order to ensure that your data is not used for training purposes, you can click on your name displayed at the bottom left corner of the screen. From here, head over to settings and click on Data Controls. Then, toggle the Improve the model for everyone option off.
“Allow your content to be used to train our models, which makes ChatGPT better for you and everyone who uses it. We take steps to protect your privacy,” a note at the bottom of the option says.
However, if you have no problem with OpenAI using your data for training purposes, you can keep it switched on.
ChatGPT has come a long way from its launch back in November 2022. The AI model was running on GPT 3.5 LLM. A couple of months later, OpenAI unveiled a new powerful GPT-4, access to which was reserved only for users willing to pay a fee to access the chatbot. Hence, ChatGPT running on GPT-4 became exclusive to only those who were paying a premium to the company. With that being said, the AI chatbot’s awareness regarding events, quality of answers, and ability to store history and remember instructions have all been upgraded in the last few months.
Source: OpenAI now lets you store ChatGPT history without any conditions
