Digital Map to Monitor Users’ Health

A visitor tests the Reign health tracker bracelet by Jaybird, which monitors activity and sleep. Reuters
A visitor tests the Reign health tracker bracelet by Jaybird, which monitors activity and sleep. Reuters
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Digital Map to Monitor Users’ Health

A visitor tests the Reign health tracker bracelet by Jaybird, which monitors activity and sleep. Reuters
A visitor tests the Reign health tracker bracelet by Jaybird, which monitors activity and sleep. Reuters

A Chinese company has developed a digital map for every individual using DNA and samples of saliva and urine. This information is then used to inform the user of his / her overall health status and to help monitor early-stage disease.

During her trip to China last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the headquarters of a new private Chinese company specializing in the collection and analysis of health data for citizens in China to help them monitor their health all the time in return for a subscription, the German News Agency reported.

Collecting the largest amount of users’ data highlights the success of iCarbonX, founded by the Chinese Wang Jun, a biologist and programming specialist in 2015.

The iCarbonX aims to collect and evaluate the health data of about one million users in China over the next five years. The company cooperates with fitness clubs and medical clinics, as well as opening its own biological measurement stations in major cities in China, but also, aims to reach its data collection points to the user's home in the long run.

At the same time, the firm plans to develop a new generation of smart home appliances such as "toilets" that analyze urine, toothbrushes that analyze saliva, and mirrors that scan the user's skin to provide the best and most accurate health information.



Italy Fines OpenAI over ChatGPT Privacy Rules Breach

The Italian watchdog also ordered OpenAI to launch a six-month campaign on Italian media to raise public awareness about how ChatGPT works - Reuters
The Italian watchdog also ordered OpenAI to launch a six-month campaign on Italian media to raise public awareness about how ChatGPT works - Reuters
TT

Italy Fines OpenAI over ChatGPT Privacy Rules Breach

The Italian watchdog also ordered OpenAI to launch a six-month campaign on Italian media to raise public awareness about how ChatGPT works - Reuters
The Italian watchdog also ordered OpenAI to launch a six-month campaign on Italian media to raise public awareness about how ChatGPT works - Reuters

Italy's data protection agency said on Friday it fined ChatGPT maker OpenAI 15 million euros ($15.58 million) after closing an investigation into use of personal data by the generative artificial intelligence application.

The fine comes after the authority found OpenAI processed users' personal data to "train ChatGPT without having an adequate legal basis and violated the principle of transparency and the related information obligations towards users".

OpenAI said the decision was "disproportionate" and that the company will file an appeal against it.

The investigation, which started in 2023, also concluded that the US-based company did not have an adequate age verification system in place to prevent children under the age of 13 from being exposed to inappropriate AI-generated content, the authority said, Reuters reported.

The Italian watchdog also ordered OpenAI to launch a six-month campaign on Italian media to raise public awareness about how ChatGPT works, particularly as regards to data collection of users and non-users to train algorithms.

Italy's authority, known as Garante, is one of the European Union's most proactive regulators in assessing AI platform compliance with the bloc's data privacy regime.

Last year it briefly banned the use of ChatGPT in Italy over alleged breaches of EU privacy rules.

The service was reactivated after Microsoft-backed OpenAI addressed issues concerning, among other things, the right of users to refuse consent for the use of personal data to train the algorithms.

"They've since recognised our industry-leading approach to protecting privacy in AI, yet this fine is nearly twenty times the revenue we made in Italy during the relevant period," OpenAI said, adding the Garante's approach "undermines Italy's AI ambitions".

The regulator said the size of its 15-million-euro fine was calculated taking into account OpenAI's "cooperative stance", suggesting the fine could have been even bigger.

Under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduced in 2018, any company found to have broken rules faces fines of up to 20 million euros or 4% of its global turnover.