Can Character.AI see your chats? Who can read them and how they are used

The short answer

Character.AI's help center says character creators cannot see your chats and that people are not spectating chats when a character talks as if it were human, as of October 21, 2026. The company itself does handle them: its Trust & Safety team, which includes internal staff and contracted moderators, reviews flagged and reported content, and its EU Digital Services Act page says it uses automated and manual measures to spot possibly illegal content.

Character.AI also says it keeps certain data users share to train and improve its AI models, with an opt-out setting described in its help center. Parents using Parental Insights see screen time only, not messages.

Other users and character creators

Character.AI's help center says creators can never see the conversations you have with their characters. Its Creator Insights article describes only totals, such as the number of messages their characters received and new followers.

Asked whether people are spectating chats when a character talks as if it were a real person, the help center answers no, saying characters imitate how humans talk and you are still talking to the character.

Things you publish are different. Characters can be set to Public, Unlisted (reachable by direct link) or Private, and the help center says content seen by the community may be reviewed by moderators.

Staff and moderators

Character.AI's Safety Center says its Trust & Safety team handles flagged and reported content, and that the team includes internal personnel as well as contracted moderators. It also describes automated tools, including classifiers that filter model responses for teens.

Its EU Digital Services Act page says it uses automated and manual measures to help identify possibly illegal activity and terms violations, and that information from a report may be shared with the user who posted the content. The help center pages reviewed for this guide do not say how often, or under what conditions, staff read private chats that have not been flagged.

Law enforcement and authorities

Character.AI's EU Digital Services Act page says it may act against users who break the law or its terms, including reporting the user to law enforcement, and gives EU authorities a dedicated contact address. Its help center summary of its privacy policy lists complying with legal obligations among its uses of data.

The help center pages reviewed for this guide do not describe how Character.AI responds to subpoenas or other U.S. law enforcement requests.

Are your chats used to train AI?

Character.AI's help center says it keeps certain data users share to help train and improve its models and that personal information is reduced before training. Its training data disclosure lists text content and interaction data from users among its sources, along with publicly available and synthetic data.

Its help article describes a setting called Improve the Model for Everyone. In the app it is under Settings, then Data & Privacy; on the web it is under Settings, then Account, then Manage Account & Data, then Model Improvement. The article presents the steps for users in the European Economic Area or the UK. A July 1, 2026 help center notice says its Regional Privacy Disclosures state you can opt out of training at any time.

The article says that after opting out, new content will not be used to train its generative models, but data may still be used for search, recommendations and safety classifiers. It does not say whether data already used for training is removed.

Calls, voices and age checks

• Character calls: the help center says call conversations are also stored as text chat.
• Voices: it says private voices can only be seen and used by you, while public voices can be used by others.
• Age checks: the help center says selfies and IDs go to its age assurance vendor, Persona, which deletes biometric data and IDs within 7 days, and that Character.AI does not collect or store personal data submitted during age verification.

What parents can see

Character.AI's Parental Insights FAQ says a linked trusted adult sees the teen's screen time, as daily totals and a weekly digest. It says trusted adults cannot see messages, in-app content or other activity through the connection. The teen sends the invite from Settings, the adult must prove they are an adult, and either side can disconnect.

Ads and data sales

Character.AI's help center summary of its privacy policy says it does not sell users' personal information, and lists a right to opt out of data sharing or selling among regional rights.

In the bankruptcy case, state attorneys general allege that the app's Your Privacy Choices screen offers an opt-out from sharing information for targeted advertising, and that the opt-out works only on the device where it is set. That is an allegation, not a finding.

What could happen to chats in a sale

Character Technologies, the company behind Character.AI, began a Chapter 11 case on October 12, 2026 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (case No. 26-11603-BLS) to run a court-supervised sale of what it calls all or substantially all of its assets. It says user information remains covered by its privacy policy and that its data privacy and security practices are unchanged. Its press release names Disney Worldwide Services as the proposed lead bidder, for a non-exclusive license of certain intellectual property and certain claims.

On October 14, 2026, a coalition of state attorneys general, which New York's attorney general described as 40 attorneys general, filed a notice listing protections any buyer should adopt. They include a privacy program, account-level ad opt-outs, no use of chat content to train models or for advertising beyond what consumers and parents validly agreed to, and a chance for consumers to delete their data before any sale of it. Each state reserves the right to seek a consumer privacy ombudsman under the Bankruptcy Code.

Separately, the FTC's 2025 study of companion chatbots, which included Character Technologies, asked how companies use or share personal information from users' conversations. It is a study, not an enforcement case.

How to delete your chats

The help center documents deleting your whole account: on the web under Profile Settings, Account, Manage Account & Data, then Delete Account, or in the app from the settings icon on your profile, then Remove Account. It says deletion is permanent and cannot be reversed. The help articles reviewed for this guide do not give steps for deleting a single chat.

To keep a copy first, request an export from the same Manage Account & Data menu on the web, or from Legal & Privacy in the app. The help center says exports can take 3 to 4 weeks and the emailed link expires after 7 days. See the guide How to delete a Character.AI account for the full steps.