Many were surprised first thing in the morning, when the Italian Guarantor for the Protection of Personal Data (GPDP) announced in a statement that it prohibits, with immediate effect, the use of ChatGPT throughout the country, and has no nothing to do with the risks that the advancement of artificial intelligence can bring, but rather they have to do with your personal data.
Basically, this Italian body ensures that OpenAI lacks a legal basis that justifies this collection and storage of massive data to train algorithms ChatGPT.
In order for us to understand the situation, we must go back to May 25, 2018, when the European Data Protection Regulation came into force, to guarantee the privacy of all citizens of the European Union in each of their online activities, and this affects now to using ChatGPT.
With the GDPR on the table, and the Italian body for the protection of personal data having already acted, a domino effect could not be ruled out in the rest of the European countries, including Spain.
From Italy the decision has already been made to prohibit ChatGPT and with it, the processing of data from Italian users towards Open AIat the same time that an investigation is opened towards the company.
It is a temporary decision until those responsible for this artificial intelligence provide the necessary documentation to ensure that data is not being collected illegally.
In the official statement they state that they have detected that no information is provided to users whose data has been collected by OpenAI and processed through the ChatGPT service.
The body also clarifies that “there is evidence of the absence of an adequate legal basis in relation to the collection of personal data and its processing for the purpose of forming the algorithms underlying the operation of ChatGPT”.
On the other hand, they also allege that the use of ChatGPT does not have any system to verify the age of the users, therefore this branch of the General Data Protection Regulation would also be breached.
The deadlines that OpenAI has and its possible repercussions in Europe
Right now the organization requires OpenAI to communicate, within a maximum period of 20 days, the initiatives they have taken and any allegation related to the infractions that have been mentioned, which infringe articles 5, 6, 8, 13 and 25 of the General Regulation of Data Protection.
We will see if other European countries speak out and/or make a decision similar to the Italian one, basically because this prohibition order is based on non-compliance with the GDPR European.
ChatGPT has not had a good week, where days ago it was confirmed that some personal and payment data of ChatGPT plus users had been leaked, and now they are facing a ban that could be extended to the rest of the European countries.