BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association
Your Data Your Rights
Artificial intelligence company OpenAI has filed a legal challenge against an order by British Columbia’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner to produce documents related to the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge.
A statement from the independent privacy watchdog said the California-based company had requested a judicial review in B.C. Supreme Court, challenging the request for certain documents as part of an ongoing investigation.
The office said it originally asked OpenAI in February to provide information, including the “specific interactions” its ChatGPT platform had with shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar, following media reports linking the chatbot with the shootings.
Van Rootselaar killed eight people on Feb. 10, including five students and an educational assistant at a secondary school, before fatally shooting herself.
The privacy office said its probe is focused on the use of personal information in the chatbot’s responses, such as details in uploaded content or interactions with other ChatGPT users, and whether it would be considered appropriate under the circumstances, “including the potential for responses to influence behaviour.”
The office said OpenAI did not comply with its request and it launched an investigation in June, followed by an order in September compelling the production of the information, which the tech company was challenging.
“Due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter of this investigation, the (office) is limiting information disclosed publicly to what is strictly necessary,” it said.
“The (office) is providing key information about the investigation to the general public, now that it is in the public domain.”
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The company shut down Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT account in June 2025 after it was flagged for concerning behaviour, but it did not notify police.
The firm’s petition, stamped by B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver on Oct. 26, seeks an order quashing the investigation by the privacy office.
Alternatively, it asks the court to throw out the office’s order to produce information related to the mass shooting.
The petition says the order is an “unnecessary and impermissible demand for compelled production of personal information, and it would set a dangerous precedent.”
The statement from the privacy office, issued Tuesday, said it has jurisdiction over organizations that collect, use and disclose the personal information of B.C. residents under the Personal Information Protection Act.
But the OpenAI petition says “a tragedy, however grave, cannot give a privacy regulator expertise over online safety, nor does it expand the OIPC’s powers beyond their statutory and constitutional limits.”
The petition says the office had neither offered a “coherent rationale” for its investigation, nor identified reasonable grounds to believe OpenAI breached the provincial legislation in connection with the Tumbler Ridge shootings.
It argues the B.C. government’s lawsuit against OpenAI, filed in the United States, alleges the opposite — “that OpenAI should have made greater use of personal information by providing it to law enforcement eight months before the tragedy.”
The petition also says OpenAI had produced the shooter’s ChatGPT logs “subject to legal process from the RCMP” and subsequently provided the logs to the B.C. government as part of the province’s ongoing litigation against the company.
Several victims and their families have also filed lawsuits against the tech firm.
A 30-year-old resident of Bellingham, Wash., is meanwhile accused of conspiring with Van Rootselaar online, helping to set up a planned livestream of the shootings.
James Cody Bryant, who uses female pronouns and goes by the name Melody, pleaded not guilty in Seattle this month to the charge of conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country, with a trial set for December.
Bryant has been denied bail.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 30, 2026.
You can support trusted and verified news content like this.
FIPA’s news monitor subscribers, donors and funders help make these available to everyone rather than behind a paywall. We appreciate every contribution because it makes a difference.
If you found this article interesting and useful, please consider contributing here.
