Germany launches data protection probe during ChatGPT weeks after Italy’s restriction

Germany, along with other European countries, is monitoring the use of personal data by the popular artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT and is demanding answers from its US maker OpenAI, a regulator said on Monday.

Regional data protection authorities in Europe’s top economy have put together a questionnaire for OpenAI and are expecting a response by June 11, said Schleswig-Holstein state commissioner Marit Hansen.

“We want to know if a privacy impact assessment has been done and if the privacy risks are under control,” Hansen told AFP.

“We are asking OpenAI for information on issues arising from the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).”

German authorities want to make sure that OpenAI, in compliance with EU law, sufficiently informs the people whose data ChatGPT uses that they “have rights, for example, to access, correct or even delete their data,” he said.

There is also a need to “clarify how these rights can be exercised,” he said, adding that regulators were particularly concerned about the handling of information about minors.

“As soon as the personal data of European citizens is processed, European data protection legislation must be respected,” he said.

Italy temporarily banned the program last month, claiming that its data collection violated data protection laws. It has since asked OpenAI to tweak its chatbot so it can be back online in the country at the end of April.

France’s regulator said earlier this month it had opened formal proceedings after receiving five complaints, while Spain’s data protection agency AEPD also said it had opened an investigation into the software and its US owner.

The Central Data Regulatory Authority of the European Union has formed a working group to help countries harmonize their policies and solve data protection problems.

ChatGPT can create essays, poems, and conversations from the shortest prompts and has proven it can pass tough tests.

However, it has been concerned that its capabilities could lead to widespread cheating in schools, increase disinformation online and replace human workers.

And a chatbot can only work if it’s trained on large datasets, raising concerns about where OpenAI gets its data and how it’s processed.

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