Italian authorities have informed OpenAI that their ChatGPT chatbot, which uses artificial intelligence, has breached the strict data privacy regulations of the European Union.

On Monday, the data protection authority of the country, Garante, informed OpenAI, a company based in San Francisco, of violations of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Last year, the watchdog initiated an investigation into ChatGPT after temporarily banning its chatbot in Italy. The chatbot has the ability to generate text, images, and sound in response to user inquiries.

After conducting research, the watchdog determined that there were violations of EU privacy regulations based on the evidence gathered during their investigation.

OpenAI has been given 30 days to respond to the accusations and has stated that they will cooperate with Italian regulators in a positive manner.

According to a statement from the company, we are confident that our methods comply with GDPR and other privacy regulations. We also go above and beyond to safeguard individuals’ data and privacy. Our goal is for our AI to gain knowledge about the world, not individuals’ personal information. We make a conscious effort to minimize the use of personal data when training our systems, including ChatGPT, which also refuses to collect private or sensitive information about individuals upon request.

Last year, the company stated that it met several requirements set by Garante in order to have the ChatGPT ban removed.

The ban was enforced by the watchdog due to the discovery of users’ sensitive messages and payment details being vulnerable. Additionally, ChatGPT lacked a mechanism to confirm users’ ages, resulting in minors receiving inappropriate responses from the AI tool.

The legality of OpenAI’s collection of large amounts of data to train ChatGPT’s algorithms was also brought into question. There are concerns that the system may occasionally produce inaccurate information about specific individuals.

Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are showing more interest in the rising use of generative AI systems such as ChatGPT.

Recently, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission initiated an investigation into the connections between OpenAI and Anthropic, two AI startups, and the major tech companies that have financially supported them, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. The European Union and Britain’s competition regulators are also currently looking into Microsoft’s investments in OpenAI.

AI systems in the EU are subject to wider supervision, as the region is currently finalizing its revolutionary AI Act, which is the first comprehensive set of rules for artificial intelligence in the world. It is anticipated that the 27 member states of the bloc will approve a version of this legislation on Friday.

Source: wral.com