Last Updated: February 6, 2026
This article explains how OpenAI may process limited contact information about you even if you don't have a ChatGPT account.
Summary
OpenAI may process your phone number if someone you know has your phone number saved in their device’s address book and chooses to upload their contacts.
We don’t receive other information that could appear in a user’s device address book including names or email addresses.
For more information about how we process personal data, please see our Privacy Policy.
How contact importing works
Contact importing is an optional feature that allows users of our services to choose whether to share phone numbers from their device contacts with OpenAI.
When someone uploads their contacts:
Phone numbers are converted into a coded format (called hashing)
We check on an ongoing basis whether any of those coded values match existing OpenAI accounts
The coded (hashed) phone numbers are stored on OpenAI’s servers and associated with the user who uploaded them, and is used both to help people find contacts who already use OpenAI services and to support future matching if someone later signs up using the same phone number. If we find a match, the user who uploaded their contacts may see suggestions to connect. If they choose to follow someone, that person may receive a notification and an option to follow back.
Contact lists from the user’s device are deleted after this matching step. We do not store contact names or full address books. The coded (or hashed) phone numbers may be kept to support connection features, such as showing suggestions or updating connections if someone later joins OpenAI’s services.
Why we process this information
We process this information based on our legitimate interests and the legitimate interests of our users. These interests include providing our services to our users and helping users find people they already know on our services and to connect with them.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have certain rights in relation to your personal data, including the right to access, rectify, and erase your information, as well as the right to restrict and object to certain processing of your information. As contact importing is limited and only takes place for a matter of seconds, your ability to exercise these rights may be limited. More information about your rights and how we handle personal data is available in our Privacy Policy.
