Canadian prosecutors say OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman failed to prevent one of the deadliest mass shootings in Canadian history by failing to notify police of the alleged attackerʼs ChatGPT account, prompting the province of British Columbia to file a lawsuit against the company.
The Financial Times writes about this.
The lawsuit, filed Sept. 21 in federal court in San Francisco, concerns a mass shooting that occurred in February at a school in a remote British Columbia community that left nine people dead, including the shooter, and more than 20 others injured.
The lawsuit, filed by the provincial attorney general and the local school board, accuses OpenAI of negligence and aiding and abetting a mass shooting. The plaintiffs cite a February report in The Wall Street Journal that says that in June 2025, OpenAI’s automated monitoring system detected the attacker’s account and forwarded it to employees for review.
The review team concluded that there was a “credible, specific risk of harm to others”. OpenAI reviewers recommended reporting the information to the police, but the company declined that recommendation and instead decided to deactivate the account, the court document states. The attacker then continued to communicate with ChatGPT through a second account.
The document also notes that the company was aware of this risk after two cases in the US where attackers similarly used ChatGPT for training.
Altman apologized to the Tumbler Ridge community for the companyʼs failure to notify law enforcement of activity on the attackerʼs account.
In March, British Columbia Premier David Abe called for AI companies to be required to report dangerous incidents to authorities. The province’s attorney general, Niki Sharma, said OpenAI had not done enough and suggested changing criminal law to define liability for AI-related actions.
In the lawsuit, the province is seeking compensation for the community and local governmentʼs costs of assisting the victims and recovering, as well as an injunction that would provide for preventive measures that would prevent similar tragedies in the future.
OpenAI said it "continues to work with government and law enforcement officials and will continue to work to improve security".
- This is not the first such lawsuit: in June, Florida filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT aids mass shooters and encourages suicide. The lawsuit complements a previous criminal investigation into OpenAI in Florida, following the April 2025 mass shooting at the University of Florida, which killed two people. In that case, investigators examined ChatGPT’s possible role in training the shooter.
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