Here are 5 key points to understand about Italy accusing OpenAI’s ChatGPT of violating data protection regulations.

The European Union has maintained a rigorous stance on data protection regulations, closely monitoring different platforms, including AI tools, and their operations and extent. In Italy, the Garante, the department responsible for assessing adherence to data privacy regulations by AI platforms, has alleged that OpenAI’s ChatGPT has violated these rules, potentially leading to severe penalties or even a prohibition on the use of this AI tool. Here are five key points regarding the statements made by Italian authorities.

What are the Italian authorities accusing ChatGPT of?

1. An Italian watchdog called Garante, one of the most active members of the EU, has been evaluating ChatGPT for over a year and has found significant privacy violations by the generative AI tool.
2. ChatGPT has been under the scanner of several other countries that have expressed concerns about privacy breaches, and now Italian authorities have accused the tool of violating the country’s privacy rules as well.
3. Notably, Garante had banned ChatGPT last year for violating EU data protection rules, but the tool was reintroduced in the region after OpenAI addressed some of the issues raised by the watchdog. The issues raised by Garante at the time were – OpenAI did not verify the age of ChatGPT’s users, who are supposed to be at least 13 years old, and secondly, the watchdog had said that ChatGPT “has no legal basis to justify the massive collection and storage of personal data by a ‘chatbot'” to educate”.
4. However, the EU did not close the case and continued to investigate the use of ChatGPT and has now accused the AI tool of one or more potential data breaches in a statement, Reuters reported. Garante did not specifically disclose the breach, and OpenAI did not immediately comment.
5. Garante has given OpenAI 30 days to present its case. It also announced the involvement of a European working group and national data protection supervisors in further investigations.

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How bad can things get?

If the violations and allegations are found to be true, Microsoft-backed OpenAI could face major consequences, including fines and a ban on the tool in Europe. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) states that any company that violates the rules will face fines of up to 4 percent of its total global revenue.

Significantly, the situation for AI companies and their tools could get worse as EU authorities continue to grapple with the implications of using this new technology and Italian authorities are the most active and strict enforcement yet.