Italian Privacy Regulator Bans ChatGPT Over Data Privacy Concerns
- Laurent Giret
- Mar 31, 2023
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Italy’s national data protection agency announced today an immediate ban of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, citing concerns over data privacy protection. The privacy regulator claims that ChatGPT is collecting and processing user data in a way that doesn’t respect local privacy laws.
“In its order, the Italian SA highlights that no information is provided to users and data subjects whose data are collected by Open AI; more importantly, there appears to be no legal basis underpinning the massive collection and processing of personal data in order to ‘train’ the algorithms on which the platform relies,” the Italian data protection agency explained in a press release.
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Additionally, the privacy regulator pointed out that ChatGPT currently has no strict age verification system in place, even though the app’s terms of service say that it should be used by people aged 13 or above. ChatGPT is one of the fastest-growing apps of all time, crossing over 100 million users in just two months according to a recent UBS study.
If OpenAI doesn’t have an office in the European Union, its representative in the EU now has 20 days to communicate how it plans to make its service compliant with EU privacy laws. If OpenAI doesn’t respect this deadline, it may have to pay a fine of up to €20 million or 4% of its annual turnover.