An OpenAI engineer, Abdulrahman Alfozan, was arrested after federal authorities alleged he placed a covert recording device in an executive conference room at the company’s San Francisco office. The OpenAI employee recording device arrest concerns a charge of using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications, according to reporting by The Associated Press and The Verge.
Alfozan, 35, was arrested Friday and made his first federal court appearance Tuesday, October 13. The FBI investigation remains ongoing. The allegation is not a conviction, and the criminal complaint described in news reports does not state what Alfozan intended to do with any communications that may have been captured.
Where was the alleged OpenAI recording device found?
According to the Justice Department account reported by NBC News and the federal complaint reported by the AP, OpenAI personnel found the device on or about September 30. It had been placed in a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room and concealed with toilet paper.
Authorities said the device was installed on or about September 28. The room frequently hosted discussions involving confidential and nonpublic information, the Justice Department said. The reports do not establish that any meeting audio was recorded, transferred or accessed by another party.
What prosecutors and OpenAI have said
The AP reported that the complaint alleges office camera footage placed Alfozan near the conference room on nearly a dozen occasions despite his lack of authorization to enter the space or attend meetings there. It also alleges that, after OpenAI installed a camera in the room, video showed him checking behind the television. Those are prosecutors’ allegations.
OpenAI said it terminated Alfozan and referred the matter to the FBI. The company said it used its own AI models to examine the device and trace its origin, concluding that an employee had planted it days earlier. That is OpenAI’s account of its internal investigation, not an independent finding about the underlying allegations.
OpenAI also said it had no indication at the time that the employee had improperly accessed or taken model weights, source code or customer data. The company’s statement is limited to what it says it had found so far; the FBI investigation was still underway.
Timeline of the reported case
- About September 28: Authorities allege the recording device was installed.
- About September 30: OpenAI personnel found the device in the executive conference room.
- October 13: Reports said Alfozan appeared in federal court after his arrest.
A detention hearing was scheduled for October 19, according to Superpower Daily’s account of the case.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
