The federal authorities have arrested 35-year-old Saudi national Abdulrahman Alfozan, an OpenAI engineering lead, on allegations that he secretly installed the device in a conference room used for highly confidential company discussions, according to a report by Fortune. OpenAI has terminated an employee after a hidden recording device was discovered inside one of its San Francisco offices, with the company saying it referred the matter to the FBI and is continuing to cooperate with an ongoing investigation.
The incident came to light on September 30 when OpenAI’s technical surveillance countermeasures team found a concealed audio-recording device plugged into a USB port behind a television in a conference room, according to the FBI.
The conference room regularly hosted discussions involving OpenAI’s proprietary research, product plans, business-development opportunities and strategic decisions, according to federal investigators. “According to the complaint unsealed today, Abdulrahman Alfozan allegedly concealed a covert recording device inside his employer’s executive conference room to secretly capture sensitive communications about the company’s super intelligence technology,” Patel said. CCTV footage and other evidence reportedly linked him to the device, according to the complaint cited by Fortune.
The device had allegedly been hidden with a piece of toilet paper and was designed to evade detection, featuring advanced encryption, audio-monitoring capabilities and a mechanism for transferring data. The FBI alleged that the device was placed to secretly capture conversations related to the company’s advanced AI technologies. FBI Director Kash Patel described the case as a national-security matter. Authorities allege that OpenAI worked with the FBI between the discovery of the device and the arrest, restricting the employee’s access to company systems while investigators gathered evidence.