OpenAI Engineer Charged Over Hidden Conference Room Recorder

An OpenAI engineer was arrested after federal investigators accused him of secretly installing a recording device in a conference room to capture conversations about the company’s technology.

The employee, 35-year-old Saudi national Abdulrahman Alfozan, was arrested Friday, about a week after OpenAI discovered the device, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco. He appeared in court Tuesday and faces a charge of using or attempting to use an electronic, mechanical or other device to intercept oral communications.

The complaint did not identify OpenAI, but the company confirmed that it found a recording device hidden inside one of its offices, reported it to the FBI and fired Alfozan.

The device was found Sept. 30 concealed in toilet paper and connected to a USB port on the back of a television in the conference room, according to the complaint. The room did not have a camera when the device was installed.

OpenAI later added a camera. Footage captured Alfozan entering the room and checking behind the television where the device had been placed, according to the FBI. Earlier security footage showed him near the room on about six occasions last month, despite not having permission to access it.

The complaint also alleges that Alfozan used a workplace productivity tool to make multiple inquiries about OpenAI’s building addresses, meeting rooms, room capacities and calendars. Before his arrest, he allegedly left a bag in another room containing his wallet, identification and a second recording device.

OpenAI identified Alfozan after using its artificial-intelligence models to examine the device and determine where it came from. The company then referred the matter to the FBI.

“We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement. “We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest.”

OpenAI said it had found no indication that Alfozan improperly accessed or removed model weights, source code or customer data. The complaint does not explain what he intended to do with any recordings or identify the conversations he may have sought to capture.

The FBI investigation is continuing. It was not immediately clear whether Alfozan had a lawyer who could comment on his behalf.