ChatGPT adds Locked Chats with PIN and Face ID

OpenAI's move adds a privacy control to a product increasingly used for personal conversations, but the company is careful to set expectations. Locking a chat hides it from view and from search results, yet OpenAI says it does not create end-to-end encryption or a separate encrypted vault, does not change retention, and does not remove information ChatGPT remembered before the chat was locked. Those limits suggest the feature is aimed at casual over-the-shoulder exposure rather than at protecting data from OpenAI itself.

The design also separates locked conversations from the rest of the account in specific ways. With Memory enabled, Locked Chats keeps its own memory shared across conversations within that section, and new messages sent after locking can update that memory without updating regular Memory, so details from locked chats do not leak into regular chats. The feature is not available for temporary chats, archived chats, group chats, chats created from a shared link, chats with scheduled tasks, or chats with meeting recordings, and resetting a PIN permanently deletes all content protected by the previous PIN.

Rollout began Tuesday across Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans, though OpenAI notes it may not be live for every user immediately and is not available on ChatGPT for Healthcare.