Nature Report: ChatGPT Data Consent Change Erases Academic Archive of Cologne Professor
A German professor has reportedly lost two years of academic work due to a single setting change in ChatGPT. According to Nature, Marcel Bucher, a plant sciences professor at the University of Cologne, saw his entire chat history and project folders permanently erased after disabling the platform’s data consent option.
Bucher had been using ChatGPT Plus as a central workspace for his professional tasks, including drafting grant proposals, preparing lectures and exams, revising research papers, organizing teaching materials, and analyzing student responses. Over time, the saved conversations and folders became an informal archive of his ongoing academic output.
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The data loss occurred when Bucher attempted to test whether ChatGPT would still function without storing his information. Instead of restricting data usage, the action instantly wiped all stored content. There was no warning about irreversible deletion, no confirmation prompt, and no recovery option—the interface simply reset to a blank workspace.
Believing it to be a technical glitch, Bucher tried multiple fixes: switching browsers and devices, clearing caches, reinstalling applications, and even reversing the setting change. None of these restored the missing data. While he had partial backups of some materials saved elsewhere, large portions of his work were lost permanently.
