Is Character AI private? Partly. Per Character.AI’s help center, character creators cannot see your one-on-one chats, and a chat is not posted for other users unless you share it, but Character.AI itself stores your chat communications, may use them to train its AI models, and may disclose data to service providers, advertising and analytics partners, and authorities under legal process. Characters you create can be Public, Unlisted or Private, and new ones start as Public. Treat Character.AI as private from other people, not private from the company.
The quotes below come from Character.AI’s Privacy Policy and Regional Privacy Disclosures (both effective July 1, 2026), its Terms of Service (last updated August 27, 2025) and its help center.
Is Character AI private? The answer in four parts
- Other users: a chat is not posted anywhere unless you share it. Your characters are visible to others only if you make them Public or share an Unlisted link.
- Character creators: Character.AI’s help center says “Creators can never see the conversations that you have with their Characters” (article last edited October 17, 2024).
- The company: collects your chats, may use them to train its models, and reserves the right to review your content. Users in the EEA and UK get a training opt-out in settings.
- Deletion: you can delete your account, but a character you made available to others may stay on the service, and the terms grant Character.AI a perpetual license to content you submit.
What Character.AI stores
The Character.AI Privacy Policy (effective July 1, 2026) lists the information you provide directly. Two lines matter most for chat privacy:
- “Your content you submit, such as chat communications, posted images or videos, biography description, and shared Characters”
- “Voice data, including recordings of your voice, if you chose to use certain voice features”
It also collects identifiers, date of birth, payment and transaction information, and technical data, including “Service-related identifiers such as User ID, Chat ID, Session ID.” The policy notes that personal communications and details you share may be treated as sensitive under applicable laws, and asks users to keep them out: “please do not include any sensitive personal information in your interactions with us or the Services.”
If you are asked to verify your age, Character.AI’s help center says the check is run by a third-party provider, Persona, that Character.AI “does not collect or store any personal data submitted during age verification,” and that any selfie or ID “is automatically and permanently deleted within 7 days” (article last edited July 14, 2026).
Who can see your Character AI chats
Other users and creators
A one-on-one chat is not published anywhere by default. The help center’s answer to “Are Characters and conversations private?” (last edited April 29, 2023) is that privacy settings on your characters and posts “control whether that content is public (visible to anyone) or just visible to you.” Creators of the characters you talk to cannot read your conversations with them, per the help article quoted above.
What you choose to share is different. Per the privacy policy, if you create or share content, such as public Characters or a public Voice, Character.AI “may make that content available and visible to others.” Posting a conversation to the in-app Community Feed or a Discord channel makes it visible to whoever can see that space.
Character.AI staff and vendors
The company can access what you submit. The Terms of Service say: “While we’re not required to do so, we may access, review, screen, edit, modify and delete your content at any time and for any reason.” The terms also say it uses “automated and manual measures” to identify content that may be illegal or break its rules.
The privacy policy lists who it discloses information to, including “employees, consultants, service providers, and other vendors who need access to such information to carry out work or perform services on our behalf,” naming data storage, customer service, analytics, content moderation, legal services, and marketing and advertising services. Neither document says staff routinely read chats. They do give the company the right to, and name content moderation as one reason.
Advertisers, buyers and authorities
Per its privacy policy, Character.AI may disclose personal information to advertising and analytics providers for tailored advertising and analytics. Its Regional Privacy Disclosures (effective July 1, 2026) state that it does “not sell personal information for monetary consideration,” but that some sharing for targeted advertising may count as a “sale” under certain US state laws. Chat content is not in its “sales” column; it is listed as disclosed to service providers such as storage and content moderation. US users can opt out of targeted advertising and “sales” on its Your Privacy Choices page.
The policy also allows disclosure to comply with a warrant, subpoena or court order, and in a merger, acquisition or sale of company assets.
Does Character.AI train on your chats?
Per its privacy policy, it may. One of the listed uses is to “Analyze, maintain, improve, modify, customize, and measure the Services, including to train our artificial intelligence/machine learning models.” Its model training help article (last edited October 30, 2025) says it retains “certain data that you share with us to help train and improve our AI models,” and that it takes steps to reduce the personal information in the training dataset first.
The EEA and UK opt-out
The help article gives the opt-out steps for users in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom:
- App: Settings, then “Data & Privacy”, then de-select “Improve the Model for Everyone”.
- Web: Settings, then Account, then “Manage Account & Data”, then “Model Improvement”, then de-select “Improve the Model for Everyone”.
Two limits are spelled out. First, “Once you opt out, new content will not be used to train our generative AI models,” so the opt-out looks forward, not back. Second, “we still may use your data to improve other aspects of our services like search, recommendations, and safety classifiers.” The Regional Privacy Disclosures describe the training opt-out as a right you can use “at any time,” in a section not limited to one region, but the FAQ’s steps are written for the EEA and UK. If you live outside the EEA and UK, check whether the setting appears in your account, or ask at [email protected].
Deleting your chats and account
The help center’s account deletion article (last edited October 3, 2024) says: “Account Deletion is permanent and cannot be reversed.” On the web the path is Profile, Profile Settings, Account, Manage Account & Data, Delete Account; in the app, Profile, the settings icon, then Remove Account. The same Manage Account & Data menu has Export data, so download a copy first if you want one.
Deletion has three caveats written into the documents:
- Retention for legal reasons. The policy says it “may also retain and use this information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.”
- Characters other people use. If a character you made has been available to other users, the policy says “we reserve the right to preserve that Character’s characteristics and to keep that Character active on the Services, even if you otherwise delete your data and your account.” It advises leaving personal information out of any character you plan to share.
- The content license. The terms grant Character.AI a “perpetual, irrevocable license” to content you submit and to Generated Content, and state that termination of your account “will not terminate Character.AI’s rights to your Content.”
Private vs public characters
Character.AI’s creator guide (last edited June 17, 2026) defines the three visibility settings:
| Setting | Who can use the character |
|---|---|
| Public | “Anyone on Character.ai can discover and chat with your Character.” Public characters appear in search and on discovery pages. |
| Unlisted | “Only people with a direct link can access your Character.” |
| Private | “Only you can see and chat with your Character.” |
As of September 2026, the character creator preselects Public, so pick Private before you save if the character is for you alone. You can change visibility later from the character’s settings page. Three other details are worth knowing:
- The character’s Tagline and Description are visible to users, and its Definition is “optionally visible,” per the creator quickstart guide. Anything you write in those fields can be read by people who find the character.
- For content that will be seen by the community, the help center says “mods might review to evaluate potential negative impact.”
- Making a character Public shares the character, not your chats with it: creators cannot see the conversations people have with their characters, per the help center.
For more on how Character.AI works day to day, including its plans and creator tools, see our Character AI review. If you are weighing a switch, our Character AI alternatives guide covers other apps.
A privacy checklist for any AI companion app
Open any AI companion or AI girlfriend app’s privacy policy and terms, note the effective date, and check each item:
- Who can read your chats? Look for “employees”, “content moderation” and “may access, review” language. Also check whether character creators or other users can ever see conversations.
- Is your content used for training? Find the exact sentence, and whether an opt-out exists, where it lives in settings, which countries get it, and whether it covers past chats or only new ones.
- What is shared with advertisers? Look for “advertising and analytics providers”, a “Your Privacy Choices” or “Do Not Sell or Share” page, and which data categories go to ad partners.
- What is the default visibility? Check whether new characters, voices or posts start as public, and set them before saving.
- What does deletion actually remove? Read the retention section: legal holds, public characters kept alive, and any “perpetual” or “irrevocable” license in the terms.
- Can you export your data? Download a copy before you delete anything.
- Who handles age checks, and for how long? If a selfie or ID is requested, find out which provider runs the check and how long it keeps the images.
- What does “encrypted” mean here? A chatbot that runs on the company’s servers has to process your message to answer it. Treat encryption claims as protection in transit and in storage, not a promise that the company cannot read your chats.
- Keep identifying details out. Real name, address, workplace, other people’s names and photos of real people do not need to be in a roleplay. Use a separate email if you prefer.
- Secure the account. Use a unique password and log out on shared devices. Character.AI’s terms ask you to “exit from your account at the end of each session.” Remember that app-store and card statements show your purchases.
- Watch for policy changes. Note the effective date and how the app says it will notify you of material changes.
We apply the same questions in our platform guides, such as is Janitor AI safe and is SpicyChat safe.
FAQ
Can others see my chats on Character AI?
Not by default. Other users and the creators of the characters you talk to cannot see your conversations, per Character.AI’s help center. A chat becomes visible to others only if you share or post it. The company itself can access your content under its terms.
Do C AI staff read chats?
Character.AI does not say staff routinely read chats. Its terms say it “may access, review, screen, edit, modify and delete your content at any time and for any reason,” and that it uses “automated and manual measures” to find content that breaks its rules. Its privacy policy allows access by employees and vendors who need it, including for content moderation.
Can C AI chats get leaked?
Any chat stored on a company’s servers can be exposed through a compromised account, a shared link or screenshot, or a legal request, and Character.AI’s terms say it does not warrant that the service will be “secure, or error-free.” Assume anything you type could one day be read by someone else, and keep identifying details out of your chats.
What are the risks of using Character AI?
On privacy, the main ones are that your chats may be used to train its models (with an opt-out in the EEA and UK), that some data is shared with advertising and analytics partners, that new characters default to Public, and that deleting your account does not remove characters other people are using or end the content license in the terms.
The bottom line
Per its own help center and policies, Character.AI keeps your chats away from other users and creators, not away from the company. Set characters to Private, use the training opt-out if you have it, keep personal details out, and export before you delete. Run the same checklist on any app you use. And if you want a companion app made for adults, Cherrypop.ai is our favorite: an 18+ platform with a big catalog of realistic and anime characters, AI images of your character, and a wizard to create your own character in minutes.