ChatGPT now lets you lock your chats
- ID
- 37519
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 21 Oct 2026, 2:36 AM
- Fetched
- 21 Oct 2026, 2:48 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/20/chatgpt-now-lets-you-lock-your-chats/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 3.5
- Created
- 21 Oct 2026, 2:48 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_coderssaas_founders
What happened
OpenAI added Locked Chats to ChatGPT: users move a conversation into a separate "Locked Chats" section, kept out of regular history, pinned chats and search, protected by a four-digit PIN or Face ID/Touch ID on supported devices. Locked Chats gets its own memory shared only among locked conversations, and resetting the PIN permanently deletes all locked chats, files and content tied to the old PIN. OpenAI explicitly says locking does not add end-to-end encryption or a separate encrypted vault, does not change retention, does not strip information ChatGPT remembered before locking, and does not change the "Improve the model for everyone" setting; the feature is also unavailable for temporary chats, archived chats, group chats, shared-link chats, chats with scheduled tasks and chats with meeting recordings.
Why it matters
Locking is shoulder-surfing protection, not data protection — if your team pastes client data into ChatGPT, nothing about retention, training settings or pre-existing memories changes, so a locked chat is not a compliant store of sensitive material. The PIN-reset behaviour is the sharp edge: one forgotten PIN wipes every locked chat and file, so do not treat it as an archive. Decide your policy on the retention and model-improvement settings instead, since those are the controls that actually matter.
Discussion angle
Does a visible "lock" icon create false confidence? Walk through what a locked chat still exposes — retention, memory written before locking, the model-improvement toggle — and whether that gap matters for teams handling client data under Malaysia's PDPA obligations.