Last Updated: April 27, 2026
Summary
Contact importing is optional. If you choose to turn it on, OpenAI can use phone numbers from your device contacts to help you find people you already know who use our services.
We only use phone numbers. We don’t upload contact names or full address books.
About contact importing on our Services:
Contact importing is an optional feature that lets you choose whether to give OpenAI access to your device contacts to help you find people you already know who are also using our services such as Group Chats.
How contact importing works?
If you choose to upload your contacts, phone numbers from your device contacts are sent to OpenAI and converted into a coded format (called hashing). We check on an ongoing basis whether those coded values match existing OpenAI accounts.
If we find a match, you may see suggestions to follow those accounts. If you choose to follow someone, that person may receive a notification and an option to follow you back.
**How long are contacts stored for?
**After the matching step, contact lists from your device are deleted. We do not store your full contact list or contact names. Coded (or hashed) phone numbers may be kept on OpenAI’s servers to support connection features, such as suggestions or notifications if someone later joins OpenAI.
**Your controls
**You can control whether OpenAI can access your contacts at any time through your device settings.
**More Information
**More information about Contact Importing for people who do not use our services can be found here.
You can also learn more about how we process personal data in our Privacy Policy.