OpenAI, the US firm behind ChatGPT, a popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, has been temporarily blocked by the Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA). Italian data privacy concerns were the cause of the block. The head of the DPA, Pasquale Stanzione, was optimistic Tuesday that OpenAI would make necessary changes for the ChatGPT to become available to users in Italy again. Stanzione said that OpenAI would need to make “useful steps” in order to allow the platform to operate by April 30. Once resumed, OpenAI would need to ensure that users have their ages verified and will have to be “clearly informed” that their data will be used to train the algorithm behind the platform.
OpenAI is a San Francisco based non-profit AI research organization founded in 2015 by Elon Musk and Sam Altman amongst others. OpenAI is widely known for the success of ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot that has become a global sensation. ChatGPT excels at generating essays, songs, exams and news articles from prompts with natural language. Following the success of ChatGPT, OpenAI entered into a multi-billion dollar deal with Microsoft, who use ChatGPT as part of applications such as Bing Search Engine.
Pasquale Stanzione is the current Head of the Italian Data Protection Authority. He has been at the helm since 2019, when he was appointed as the Chairman and CEO of the Authority by the Italian Government. Prior to taking this role, he had a long and established career in a number of European institutions, such as the Council of Europe, the European Commission and the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. Stanzione is committed to protecting personal data privacy in Italy and around the world. As such, he has made it his mission to regulate OpenAI and the use of data by ChatGPT to ensure it is compliant with data protection regulations.
