OpenAI Employee Arrested for Allegedly Hiding Recording Device in Office

An OpenAI engineer has been arrested after the company said it found a "sophisticated recording device" hidden in one of its offices. According to a report by The San Francisco Standard, the employee, 35-year-old Abdulrahman Alfozan, is accused of using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications. OpenAI's statement on the incident says […]

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OpenAI employee was arrested for allegedly planting bugs in the conference room

The recorder was apparently plugged into a USB port on a TV in an executive meeting room.

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A news writer covering streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media and more. He was previously a writer and editor for MUO.

An OpenAI engineer has seized a "sophisticated recording device" hidden in one of its offices after the company said it was working. According to a report by The San Francisco Standard, the employee, 35-year-old Abdul Rahman Alfozan, is accused of using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications.

OpenAI's post about the incident says it used its AI models to "understand the device and where it came from, identifying that a particular employee had used it a few days earlier."

Images of the alleged recording device from the complaint. Image: WBC24 via X

As reported by The San Francisco Standard, OpenAI plugged the device into a TV's USB port in an executive conference room. The device was reportedly covered with toilet paper and installed on or around September 28.

OpenAI says it has fired the employee and referred the matter to the FBI. He was arrested on Friday and has been in custody since his initial appearance in federal court on Tuesday, the Standard reported.

We discovered a sophisticated recording device hidden in one of our offices. We used our models to understand this device and where it came from and determined that a certain employee planted it a few days ago. We referred the matter to the FBI and are grateful to the agents and prosecutors who quickly made the arrest. The FBI's investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work.

At this time, we have no indication that this individual had inappropriate access to model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was fired.

We take the protection of our technology, data and people seriously and as a matter of national importance. Our security program is designed to protect against a wide range of threat actors, from insider threats to cybercriminals to nation states, and this case is an example of how AI can help tackle these complex security threats.

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