People in the United States who signed up for ChatGPT while under 18 may be covered by a proposed class action alleging OpenAI used their conversations and other data to train its AI models without valid parental consent. No class has been certified and there is nothing to file yet.
Allegations Only · No Settlement Yet
This article describes a class action complaint. The statements below are unproven allegations. OpenAI has not been found liable, there is no certified class, and nothing to claim at this time. This page is informational and is not legal advice.
What Is This About?
A federal lawsuit filed on October 13, 2026 claims that OpenAI never had a valid agreement with the children who use ChatGPT, and that everything it built from their conversations rests on that missing agreement.Doe v. OpenAI Foundation (f/k/a OpenAI, Inc.), No. 3:26-cv-11781, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. A mother suing under the pseudonym Jane Doe brought it on behalf of her two minor children, ages 12 and 16, and a proposed nationwide class of minors. The defendants are four OpenAI entities: OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI OpCo, LLC, OpenAI Holdings, LLC and OpenAI Group PBC.
The complaint alleges that OpenAI says it requires parental consent for users under 18 but never actually obtains it, that California law makes ChatGPT’s Terms of Use void for minors as a result, and that OpenAI used minors’ data to train its models and build profiles of them anyway. It asks for court declarations on those points and for a share of OpenAI’s equity, or its cash value, for the children in the class. OpenAI had not responded in court as of October 13, 2026, and none of the allegations has been proven.
The case was filed by Yetter Coleman LLP with Umberg/Zipser LLP, Sheeren Law PLLC and EdTech Law Center PLLC.
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How ChatGPT Sign-Up Works, According to the Complaint
The complaint describes a short sign-up flow. A new user enters a full name and an age. If the age is 13 or older and the user clicks “Continue,” the account opens. According to the complaint, the user is never required to open the Terms of Use, let alone read them, and OpenAI treats that click as agreement to them.OpenAI’s own documents set a higher bar for teenagers. The Terms of Use say that users under 18 must have a parent’s or legal guardian’s permission, the privacy policy says the same, and an OpenAI Help Center article quoted in the complaint says the company requires children ages 13 to 18 to obtain parental consent. The complaint alleges that OpenAI never contacts a parent at sign-up, so the only “consent” it has is the child’s own click on terms that state permission is required.
The complaint also takes aim at default settings. It alleges that the setting allowing conversations to be used for model training and the memory feature are both switched on by default for minors, while business customers are opted out of training by default. It says the “ChatGPT for Teens” version OpenAI introduced on August 18, 2026 lets a parent link to a teen’s account for safety alerts but does not add parental consent at sign-up, change the Terms of Use or change those defaults. OpenAI has not responded to these characterizations in court.
What the Complaint Says OpenAI Does With Minors’ Data
The complaint alleges that children tell ChatGPT things they would not share elsewhere, including health information, details about family and friends, photos and voice recordings, and their worries and plans. It cites Pew Research Center findings that ChatGPT is the chatbot most widely used by U.S. teens.According to the complaint, OpenAI uses that material in two ways: to train its large language models, and to build profiles of individual users through ChatGPT’s memory feature, which shapes later conversations. The complaint argues that several design choices encourage minors to keep sharing, among them a chatbot that speaks in the first person, mirrors the user’s writing style, flatters the user, remembers past conversations and ends replies with follow-up questions. It also alleges that OpenAI retains minors’ data for as long as it decides it needs to.
The complaint describes the plaintiffs’ own use in detail, from homework help to personal conversations, as examples of the information the class allegedly provided. These remain allegations, and OpenAI has not yet answered them in court.
The Legal Theory: Contracts Minors Cannot Make
The case does not plead a privacy statute or a consumer-fraud law. It rests on California contract rules for minors. The complaint notes that OpenAI is based in California and that ChatGPT’s Terms of Use select California law.The first rule is Civil Code § 1568.5, which took effect in 2022. It says a minor’s statement that a parent or guardian has consented does not count as consent under the part of the Civil Code that governs minors’ capacity to contract. The complaint argues that OpenAI’s only method of getting parental consent is the child’s own click on terms saying permission is required, and that § 1568.5 makes that method legally ineffective.
The second is Family Code § 6701, which says a minor cannot give a delegation of power, make a contract relating to real property, or make a contract relating to personal property not in the minor’s immediate possession or control. The complaint argues that two of those prohibitions apply to ChatGPT’s Terms of Use:
- Personal property, § 6701(c). The complaint argues that what minors type and upload is their personal property under California’s definitions of property, noting that OpenAI’s Terms say users own their inputs. Because that material does not yet exist when a child clicks “Continue,” the complaint says it cannot be in the child’s immediate possession at that moment.
- Delegation of power, § 6701(a). The complaint argues that the Terms and the privacy policy they reference let OpenAI share minors’ data with outside vendors, search providers and connected apps on the minor’s behalf, which it characterizes as a delegation of power a minor cannot give.
The distinction between void and voidable contracts matters here. Under Family Code § 6710, most contracts with minors are voidable: they are valid until the minor disaffirms them, which the minor can do before turning 18 or within a reasonable time afterward. The complaint says a contract barred by § 6701 is void from the start, meaning no contract ever formed, and states expressly that it relies only on § 6701. On that theory, the arbitration clause in ChatGPT’s Terms of Use would never have bound minors either, and the complaint asks the court to say so. Because it treats § 6701 as a strict rule, the proposed class includes users who were under 18 even if they typed an older age at sign-up.
Who Is in the Proposed Class
The complaint proposes one nationwide class: all persons in the United States who clicked “Continue” on ChatGPT’s Terms of Use when they were under 18 and later provided one or more tokens of data to OpenAI through ChatGPT, from November 2022 through the present. A token is a small unit of text that AI models count; the complaint cites OpenAI’s estimate that one token is roughly four characters.The usual parties are excluded, including the judge and court staff, OpenAI and its affiliates and employees, and the lawyers on both sides. The plaintiffs reserve the right to seek state-by-state subclasses later. The complaint also argues that the time limits for these claims are paused until each class member turns 18, and separately under the discovery rule. A court has not ruled on that argument, and no class has been certified.
What the Lawsuit Asks For
The complaint pleads three counts:- A declaration that OpenAI’s method of obtaining parental consent is legally invalid under Civil Code § 1568.5
- A declaration that ChatGPT’s Terms of Use are void for minors under Family Code § 6701(a) and (c), and that class members are not bound by its arbitration provisions
- Unjust enrichment
The money request rests on property law. The complaint invokes California’s accession statutes, Civil Code §§ 1031 to 1033, which govern who owns a new product made from someone else’s materials. Its argument is that OpenAI knowingly used minors’ data without valid consent to build models that are now part of a company the complaint says is worth more than $1 trillion, so the children are owed a share of what was built rather than the value of the raw data alone. It asks the court to award each class member a stake in OpenAI’s equity, or its cash value, in proportion to the number of tokens that child provided.
The prayer for relief also seeks class certification, restitution, a constructive trust over the benefits OpenAI drew from the data, disgorgement of profits, punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, and attorneys’ fees and costs. The complaint names no total dollar figure.
Where the Case Stands
The complaint was filed on October 13, 2026. That day, the clerk entered a notice that a motion and proposed order to proceed under a pseudonym had to be filed before the case would be assigned to a judge, so no judge had been assigned as of October 13. OpenAI had not responded in court as of that date.There is nothing for ChatGPT users or their parents to file. If a class is certified or the case settles, class members would be notified and any claim process would be announced then.
The suit adds to a growing list of cases over ChatGPT. A separate proposed class action alleges that outside contractors read and grade real user conversations under a program called Project Lily, and an earlier suit over Meta and Google tracking code on ChatGPT.com was dropped eight days after filing. Families have also brought individual wrongful-death and injury suits alleging ChatGPT contributed to suicides. The OpenAI lawsuit tracker follows each of them.
Questions
Who is covered by the ChatGPT children’s data class action?
The complaint proposes a nationwide class of people in the United States who clicked “Continue” on ChatGPT’s Terms of Use while under 18 and then provided data to OpenAI through ChatGPT, from November 2022 to the present. It counts every user who was actually under 18 at sign-up, whatever age they typed. No class has been certified.
Can parents file a claim in the OpenAI minors lawsuit?
There is nothing to file. The case was filed on October 13, 2026 and is at the complaint stage, with no settlement, no claim form and no certified class. If a class is certified or the case settles, class members would be notified and any claim process would be announced at that time.
Does ChatGPT require parental consent for users under 18?
OpenAI’s Terms of Use say users under 18 must have a parent’s or legal guardian’s permission, and an OpenAI Help Center article quoted in the complaint says it requires children ages 13 to 18 to obtain parental consent. The complaint alleges that sign-up asks only for a name and an age of at least 13, followed by a click on “Continue,” and that OpenAI does not contact parents. OpenAI has not responded to these allegations in court.
What is the difference between a void and a voidable contract with a minor in California?
California Family Code § 6710 makes most contracts with minors voidable: they exist, but the minor can disaffirm them before turning 18 or within a reasonable time afterward. Section 6701 lists a few kinds of contracts a minor cannot make at all, including giving a delegation of power and contracts relating to personal property not in the minor’s immediate possession or control. The complaint relies only on § 6701 and argues that ChatGPT’s Terms of Use are void from the start for minors, so no contract was formed.
Why does the lawsuit ask for a share of OpenAI’s equity?
The complaint invokes California’s accession statutes, Civil Code §§ 1031 to 1033, which deal with a new product made from someone else’s materials. It argues that minors’ data went into OpenAI’s models without valid consent, so the minors are owed a share of what was built. It asks for an equity stake in OpenAI, or its cash value, in proportion to the tokens of data each child provided, along with restitution, a constructive trust and disgorgement. A court has not ruled on that theory.
Has OpenAI responded to the children’s data lawsuit?
Not in court as of October 13, 2026, the day the complaint was filed. The same day, the clerk noted that a motion to proceed under a pseudonym had to be filed before the case would be assigned to a judge, so no judge had been assigned yet.
Sources
- Class Action Complaint for Declaratory Relief and Unjust Enrichment, Doe v. OpenAI Foundation (f/k/a OpenAI, Inc.), No. 3:26-cv-11781 (N.D. Cal. filed Oct. 13, 2026).
- U.S. District Court, Northern District of California — docket in Doe v. OpenAI Foundation, including the October 13, 2026 clerk’s notice on the pseudonym motion and judge assignment.
- Yetter Coleman LLP — Yetter Coleman Files Proposed Class Action Against OpenAI on Behalf of Minors (Oct. 13, 2026).
- Bloomberg Law — OpenAI Accused of Taking Minors’ Data Without Parental Consent.
- Courthouse News Service — Mother accuses OpenAI of exploiting kids.
- OpenAI Help Center — Is ChatGPT safe for all ages?, as quoted in the complaint.
