Canadian Privacy Commissioners are conducting an ongoing investigation into artificial intelligence (AI) company ChatGPT as part of a confidential complaint alleging the technology has been violating Canadians’ privacy. In response to the complaint, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC), alongside the offices of the privacy commissioners for Alberta, Quebec, and British Columbia, have joined together to investigate the matter. The complaint raised concerns about OpenAI’s collection, use, and disclosure of personal information without consent.
ChatGPT is an AI platform launched by OpenAI in November 2022 that uses information found across the internet to provide detailed answers to users. With its launch, it instantly earned an estimated 100 million active monthly users, making it the fastest-growing consumer platform ever seen. While OpenAI boasts of the potential of ChatGPT to replace certain manual jobs with complex AI tasks, there are also some worries over how it could affect Canadians’ privacy rights.
The team of privacy commissioners are charged with investigating whether OpenAI followed its obligations with respect to openness and transparency, access, accuracy, and accountability. They will also be determining whether the company has obtained a valid and meaningful consent for their collection, use, and disclosure of personal data through ChatGPT, and whether their activity is limited to that which is necessary for their purpose.
The investigation has been closely watched by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPCO) due to the effect AI technologies like ChatGPT have on privacy. The IPCO has called upon the provincial government to create clear and binding rules around the public sector’s use of AI technologies as a result.
The issue of ChatGPT was also raised during a Senate hearing in May, called by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to evaluate potential implications of the technology on the economy. Altman expressed the company’s concerns about the privacy of Canadians but believes that GPT-4 “is a tool, not a creature,” and argued that job losses will be outweighed by more beneficial job opportunities generated by the platform.
Another topic of interest to the privacy commissioners is the video-sharing app TikTok, with an investigation led by the OPC along with the offices of the privacy commissioners for British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec looking into whether the data collection practices on the app conform with Canadian privacy legislation. A spokesperson for TikTok has stated that they are committed to maintaining transparency and upholding users’ trust.
OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times on the specifics of the information that ChatGPT collects from its users. Though the investigation is ongoing, the joint effort of the multiple privacy commissioners demonstrates a commitment to ensuring that artificial intelligence respects the privacy and data of Canadians.
