ROME: Italian Data Protection Authority on Friday said it has fined OpenAI $15.6 million after closing an investigation into the collection of personal data by the American artificial intelligence application ChatGPT.
Italian watchdog, known as Garante in a statement said that the investigation revealed OpenAI had processed users’ personal data to train ChatGPT without a sufficient legal basis, thereby violating the principle of transparency.
“When the Garante ordered us to stop offering ChatGPT in Italy in 2023, we worked with them to reinstate it a month later,” an OpenAI spokesperson said Friday in a statement. “They’ve since recognised our industry-leading approach to protecting privacy in AI, yet this fine is nearly 20 times the revenue we made in Italy during the relevant period,” the statement said.
OpenAI added it will be committed to working with privacy authorities across the world to offer beneficial AI that respects privacy rights.
The watchdog said the probe initiated last year, also found that OpenAI did not provide an adequate age verification system to stop users under 13 years of age from being exposed to inappropriate AI-generated content.
The Italian authority also directed OpenAI to launch a six-month public awareness campaign across various Italian media outlets, focusing on data collection practices related to ChatGPT.
Regulators in the U.S. and Europe have been examining OpenAI and other companies that have played a key part in the AI boom, while governments around the world have been making rules to protect against risks posed by AI systems, led by the European Union’s AI Act, a comprehensive rulebook for artificial intelligence.
