ChatGPT breaches Italy’s data protection regulations: Garante

Italy's data protection authority, Garante, has informed OpenAI that its ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot application violates data protection regulations. This announcement follows an ongoing investigation initiated last year, during which Garante temporarily banned ChatGPT due to alleged breaches of EU privacy rules. The service was later reinstated after OpenAI addressed concerns related to user consent for the use of personal data in algorithm training.

Garante has now concluded that there are indications of one or more potential data privacy violations, though specific details were not provided in the statement. OpenAI has yet to respond to requests for comments. The authority has granted Microsoft-backed OpenAI a 30-day period to present defense arguments. The investigation will consider insights from a European task force comprising national privacy watchdogs.

Italy, being the first West European country to restrict ChatGPT, has taken a proactive stance in evaluating AI platform compliance with the EU's data privacy regulations. Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduced in 2018, companies found in violation of these rules could face fines of up to 4 per cent of their global turnover.

In December, EU lawmakers and governments reached provisional terms for regulating AI systems, including ChatGPT, marking progress toward establishing comprehensive rules for governing this technology.

(With Reuters inputs)