OpenAI Engineer Arrested After Bugging Conference Room with Hidden Recording Device

An OpenAI engineer has been arrested and charged with planting a covert audio recording device inside one of the company's conference rooms, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco.

The suspect, Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national, was taken into custody last Friday. OpenAI had discovered the device roughly a week earlier, reported it to the FBI, and promptly terminated Alfozan's employment.

The device itself was not exactly subtle in its ambition, even if it was in its placement. It was wrapped in toilet paper and shoved into a USB port on the back of a wall-mounted television. Investigators found it on September 30th.

In a statement, OpenAI said it used its own models to trace the device back to Alfozan, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days prior. The company says it has found no evidence that model weights, source code, or customer data were accessed or taken.

CCTV footage from inside the building showed Alfozan lurking near the conference room on around six separate occasions, despite having no authorised access to the space. After the device was discovered, OpenAI installed a camera in the room. That camera then captured Alfozan returning and checking behind the television where the bug had been hidden.

There is also the small matter of an unattended bag he left in a different room before his arrest, which contained his wallet, his ID, and a second recording device.

Alfozan also apparently used an internal productivity tool to look up building addresses, meeting rooms, their capacities, and calendar information. The complaint does not spell out what he intended to do with any recordings.

He appeared in court Tuesday facing a charge of using or attempting to use an electronic or mechanical device to intercept oral communications. Whether he has legal representation has not been confirmed publicly. The FBI's investigation is continuing.