ChatGPT is BANNED in Italy due to privacy concerns
- Italy’s privacy watchdog said the ban was “temporary” until changes were made
- It comes after ChatGPT Plus users revealed personal details to other accounts
The artificial intelligence software ChatGPT is temporarily blocked in Italy after a data breach, according to the Italian government’s privacy watchdog.
Italy’s data protection authority said its decision was provisional “until ChatGPT respects privacy.”
It comes after ChatGPT was taken offline on March 20 to fix a bug that allowed some people to see the titles or subject line of other users’ chat history, sparking fears of a massive personal data breach.
The authority added that OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, must report to it within 20 days with measures taken to ensure user data privacy or face a fine of up to £18 million.
OpenAI said it found that 1.2 percent of ChatGPT Plus users had “maybe” exposed personal information to other users, but it thought the actual numbers were “extremely low.”
Italy’s data protection authority said its decision was provisional ‘until ChatGPT respects privacy’
The measure taken by the Italian watchdog means that the company is temporarily not allowed to store data from Italian users.
It hit “the lack of notice to users and to all data subjects whose data is collected by OpenAI” and added information provided by ChatGPT ‘does not always correspond to real data, so determines the retention of inaccurate personal data’.
The authority also criticized the “lack of a legal basis justifying the massive collection and retention of personal data.”
While some public schools and universities around the world have blocked the ChatGPT website from their local networks due to student plagiarism concerns, it is not clear how Italy would block it on a national level.
The AI systems that power such chatbots, known as large language models, can mimic human writing styles based on the vast trove of digital books and online writings they have ingested.
A group of scientists and technology industry leaders published a letter on Wednesday urging companies like OpenAI to pause development of more powerful AI models until the fall to give society time to weigh the risks.
The CEO of the San Francisco-based company, Sam Altman, announced this week that he will be traveling six continents in May to talk to users and developers about the technology.
That includes a scheduled stop in Brussels, where European Union lawmakers have negotiated sweeping new rules to restrict high-risk AI tools.
Mr Altman said his stops in Europe would include Madrid, Munich, London and Paris.