After Italy's ChatGPT ban, European Union goes after AI chatbot over data privacy

On Thursday, the European Data Protection Board announced its intention to facilitate the coordination of member states' actions with regards to ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by an American company. Italy has already banned the chatbot due to concerns over privacy violations.

“The EDPB decided to launch a dedicated task force to foster cooperation and to exchange information on possible enforcement actions conducted by data protection authorities,” the agency said. 

Last month, Italy prohibited the use of ChatGPT, citing potential violations of EU privacy regulations. As a result, Spain's data protection agency, AEPD, has initiated an investigation into OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, arguing that AI development should not infringe on individuals' personal rights and freedoms. Similarly, Germany has stated that it could potentially follow suit, but has not yet taken action against ChatGPT.

CNIL, the French regulatory authority, announced on Thursday that it has initiated an investigation into ChatGPT following five complaints it received about the chatbot. One of the complainants was Eric Bothorel, a member of parliament from President Emmanuel Macron's LREM party, who alleged that the chatbot created false information about his life, including his birth date and employment history.

The GDPR, the EU's data protection legislation, mandates that online services must furnish precise personal information. The bloc proposed stringent regulations in 2021 regarding the development of AI.

Concerns around privacy in ChatGPT

Last week, US law scholar Jonathan Turley revealed that the chatbot had invented a news article accusing him of sexual harassment of students during a trip to Alaska. No such article ever existed, Turley had never gone to Alaska, and the chatbot identified the wrong university as his supposed employer, reported RT. 

The first publicly available iteration of ChatGPT launched in November 2022, and the copy it generated based on user prompts quickly caused an uproar from academia to journalism. According to OpenAI, its latest iteration, GPT-4, “exhibits human-level performance on various professional and academic benchmarks,” including top scores on the US bar exam and SAT university entrance tests.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told ABC News last month that the AI will “eliminate a lot of current jobs,” and that he was concerned it could be used for “large-scale disinformation” as well as “offensive cyber-attacks.” However, Altman insisted that GPT-4 is still “very much”