OpenAI Engineer Charged Over Conference Room Recording Device

An OpenAI engineer was arrested and charged with attempting to intercept conversations by planting a recording device in a company conference room, federal prosecutors said. The allegations have not been tested in court, and the FBI investigation is ongoing. The complaint identifies the employee as Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, who worked as an engineer at OpenAI. He was arrested October 9 and made his first court appearance October 13, according to prosecutors. He is charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications. Prosecutors allege the device was hidden in toilet paper and connected to a USB port behind a television in a conference room used for discussions about confidential company matters. OpenAI said it found the device during a security sweep on September 30 and referred the matter to the FBI. OpenAI said its investigators used the company’s AI models alongside their own analysis to examine the device and identify a suspected employee. The company said it terminated Alfozan. It also said it had no indications he improperly accessed or removed model weights, source code or customer data.