OpenAI engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan is in federal custody after allegedly hiding an encrypted audio recorder in an executive conference room in San Francisco. According to NS3.AI, the Justice Department said Alfozan was arrested on October 9 and charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications.

OpenAI said its AI models helped identify the employee who planted the device. The company said it terminated Alfozan and has no indication that he inappropriately accessed or exfiltrated model weights, source code or customer data.

Federal officials are treating the prosecution as a national security case.