A Hawaii mother is suing OpenAI, claiming ChatGPT mined her two kids for data they never agreed to give up.
The anonymous plaintiff's children, ages 12 and 16, created ChatGPT accounts in early 2026 without her permission. OpenAI's terms bar users under 13, but the company doesn't actively verify age or parental consent, so enforcement is mostly on paper. The proposed class action complaint, filed Tuesday, alleges ChatGPT "purposely extracted" sensitive information from the kids, including emotional insecurities, relationship details, and selfies, and argues OpenAI's design choices, first person responses, a mirrored tone, persistent memory, and reflexive flattery, are built to keep minors talking and handing over more. The suit wants each class member paid out in OpenAI equity or its cash value, scaled to how much data was taken from them.
OpenAI is reportedly chasing a $1.4 trillion valuation ahead of a possible IPO, and this suit ties that number directly to kids' chat logs, arguing the data itself is part of what investors are being asked to value. It also lands just days after a child safety group pushed OpenAI to pause ChatGPT for Teens entirely, a pattern OpenAI dismisses both times as the same complaint in different packaging. The company's defense, that scrutiny will push teens toward less safe competitors, starts to look less like evidence and more like a talking point.
OpenAI says teens spend under 15 minutes a day in the app. Fifteen minutes, this lawsuit argues, is apparently all it takes to build a profile worth suing over.