Amnesty International reports unprecedented AI data theft and VPNs are more popular than ever

A new report from Amnesty International exposes the extent to which generative AI programs are stealing private data from people across the internet. OpenAI, Google Gemini, and Midjourney are all named as businesses that are specifically taking part in this “unlawful” data scraping. It’s no wonder more people are looking for a VPN now than ever before.

The full report is really interesting (and rather depressing), but I thoroughly recommend reading it if you’re even slightly interested in internet privacy. I raised concerns about how generative AI systems may be stealing private data before, and just a couple of weeks ago wrote about how ChatGPT has allegedly been sharing data with Google and Meta. A lot of people are rightly concerned about what generative AI means for copyright laws, particularly for small, independent creators, but I think concerns about what this means for our private data are just as pressing.

Imagine, for instance, you’ve shared a picture of you and your friends having fun on the beach. You imagine this photo will only be seen by people in your life, but if it gets scraped by AI, and then someone writes a prompt asking for a picture of people having a day out by the sea, and specifically describes something that resembles the way you and your pals have posed. They could end up with an AI-ified picture of you all.

Aside from the invasive image-generation aspect, it’s especially concerning to know that AI chatbots have this much information about people, especially when services like ChatGPT actively incorporate adverts into their platforms. Yes, they are actively marked on-screen as sponsored, but how long until a chatbot manipulates someone into spending loads of money on something they don’t need? There could be legions of con artists armed with everything they need to know about the people they’re targeting. The first time something like this happened, I’m sure it would be dismissed as an example of “rogue AI” rather than being exactly what was wanted all along.

This combined with more and more countries asking people to upload their ID to access “adult content” explains why interest in VPNs has increased so much lately. There are just so many threats to online privacy. February of this year saw more people Googling “VPN” than at any other point in time, a 75% increase over the February of 2025, and a 334% increase when compared to an average month in 2010. It hasn’t been consistently that high since, but it has been consistently higher than in previous years.

The sad thing is that VPNs can only do so much – especially, as a lot of this data has already been scraped. However, if you are very careful about what you post publicly online and use a VPN as often as possible, it’ll help to some extent. Think of it like using an umbrella on a stormy night. Yeah, your legs and feet will probably still get wet, but at least you won’t be thoroughly drenched to the bone.

If you’re thinking of getting one, read our list of the best VPN services. We have tested NordVPN, Proton VPN, Surfshark, CyberGhost, ExpressVPN, and more. However, if you don’t have time to read through them all, our top recommendation is Nord, so go give that a try.