Statistics on Scottish Government employees who have accessed specific AI website: FOI release

Information requested

I would like to ask the following:

1. Has the Scottish Government made any record of how many Scottish Government employees have access the following website: ‘https://openai.com/’

2. If possible, could this be broken down by job title and paygrade?

Response

The answer to your question is as follows:

From the period of October 30th, 2024 to March 21st, 2025 ‘https://openai.com/’ was accessed by 1,701 Scottish Government employees. The system which hosts this data did not allow for a breakdown of employees by job title and pay grade.

For clarity, in order to respond to your request we had to create reports of user web browsing history for the website in question. We did so using our standard reporting period for requests of this nature. However,due to the configuration of the website, the reports took considerable time and resource to compile. There is a cost limit for any Freedom of Information request submitted. Rather than deny this request on the grounds of cost, we are reporting on the time frame we could compile within reasonable cost limits.

If you would like a report on the number of Scottish Government employees who have accessed ‘https://openai.com/’ since March 21st, 2025 please submit an FOI with the specified time period.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.