- By Imran Rahman Jones
- BBC News
January 29, 2024, 2:55 p.m. GMT
Updated 44 minutes ago
Image source: Getty Images
According to an Italian regulator, ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence-based chatbot, violates data protection regulations.
An investigation by the Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA) found data breaches that the BBC believes are related to the collection of personal data and age protection.
The chatbot relies on large amounts of data being fed to it from the Internet.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI has 30 days to respond with its defense. The BBC has contacted OpenAI for comment.
Italy has taken a clear stance on data protection regarding ChatGPT.
It was the first Western country to block the product in March 2023, citing privacy concerns.
ChatGPT was brought back into operation about four weeks later after declaring that it had successfully “addressed or resolved” the issues raised by the data protection authority.
At that time, the Italian data protection authority DPA launched an “investigative measure” in which violations of data protection were discovered.
In a statement, the data protection authority said it had “concluded that the available evidence points to the existence of breaches of the provisions of the EU GDPR”. [General Data Protection Regulation]”.
They refer to the bulk collection of user data, which is then used to train the algorithm.
The regulator also fears that younger users may be exposed to inappropriate content generated by the chatbot.
Under the EU's GDPR law, companies that break the rules can be fined up to 4% of the company's global turnover.
The Italian Data Protection Authority is working with the European Union's European Data Protection Board, which set up a special task force to monitor ChatGPT in April 2023.
At the time of ChatGPT's reintroduction in Italy in April 2023, the Italian regulator told the BBC that it “welcomes the measures implemented by OpenAI” but calls for even more compliance.
In particular, a spokesman said, they would like to see more action to “implement an age verification system and plan and carry out an information campaign to inform Italians about the incident and about their right to object to the processing of their personal data for training purposes.” Algorithms”.
An OpenAI spokesman said at the time that it would continue discussions with the regulator.
OpenAI has close ties to tech giant Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in the company.
Microsoft has integrated AI into its search engine Bing as well as its Office 365 apps such as Word, Teams and Outlook.
Additional reporting by Thomas Fabbri.