The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has recently announced the formation of a task force dedicated to governing and enforcing laws around ChatGPT, indicating a shift within the European Union towards forming a more expansive privacy policy that incorporates and regulates artificial intelligence applications. The task force will coordinate between member states’ data protection authorities for a single unified policy.
The catalyst for this action was an incident in Italy, in which the Italian data protection authority ordered OpenAI–the parent company of ChatGPT–to stop processing personal data for Italian citizens after discovering that OpenAI’s terms of use did not inform its users that their data was being collected and used to train its algorithms. Furthermore, the service was not verifying a user’s age, which raised the concern that information could be inappropriately accessed by minors.
In response, OpenAI, who claimed that its platform adhered to GDPR and other data protection laws, blocked access to ChatGPT for all Italian citizens and refunded payments received in March. Following the response, OpenAI has stated that it has addressed the issues raised by the Italian data protection authority and that ChatGPT is again accessible to Italian users.
OpenAI is a technology and research laboratory founded in 2015 and jointly funded by tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook. The company has developed an AI system known as GPT-3 which can perform various tasks such as writing articles, playing games, and allowing users to interact with language.
The Italian data protection authority, led by data protection specialist Antonella Pansini, are at the forefront of protecting users’ data from being exploited by AI technologies. Through the establishment of the EU task force and its enforcement of laws upon OpenAI, Pansini demonstrates a commitment to establishing privacy protocols for the advancement of AI technology.
