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
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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.



Apple Takes Fight Against $587 Million EU Antitrust Fine to Court

FILE PHOTO: Apple logo is seen on the Apple store at The Marche Saint Germain in Paris, France July 15, 2020.  REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Apple logo is seen on the Apple store at The Marche Saint Germain in Paris, France July 15, 2020. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
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Apple Takes Fight Against $587 Million EU Antitrust Fine to Court

FILE PHOTO: Apple logo is seen on the Apple store at The Marche Saint Germain in Paris, France July 15, 2020.  REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Apple logo is seen on the Apple store at The Marche Saint Germain in Paris, France July 15, 2020. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo

Apple took a challenge against EU regulators to Europe's second highest court on Monday after they fined it 500 million euros ($587 million) earlier this year for breaching landmark rules aimed at curbing the power of Big Tech.

The European Commission in a decision in April said the iPhone maker's technical and commercial restrictions that prevent app developers from steering users to cheaper deals outside the App Store breached the Digital Markets Act.