“Infringes on users’ privacy”, Italy blocks ChatGPT
Italy’s data protection watchdog on Friday issued an immediate ban on access to OpenAI’s popular artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT. As a reason, this authority cited alleged privacy violations.
In a statement, the Italian National Authority for the Protection of Personal Data said that ChatGPT had “committed a data breach on March 20 regarding user conversations and payment information of subscribers to the paid service”.
The decision, which comes into force immediately, is expected to result in the temporary restriction of data processing of Italian users vis-à-vis the creator of ChatGPT OpenAI”.
ChatGPT was launched in November 2022 and has since become extremely popular, impressing users with its ability to explain complex issues clearly and concisely. ChatGPT writes in different styles and languages with a “human tone.” Also, he can create poetry and pass exams.
ChatGPT can also be used to write computer code, without having any technical knowledge.
The Italian data regulator, however, criticized ChatGPT for not providing an information notice to users whose data is collected by OpenAI.
It also objected to the “lack of a legal basis justifying the massive collection and storage of personal data for the purpose of training the algorithms that run the platform”.
