In an interview on Tuesday, Pasquale Stanzione, head of Italy’s data protection watchdog, announced that OpenAI can reopen its project ChatGPT in Italy, as long as the company makes useful changes allowing for the compliance to privacy laws. Just a few weeks ago, the authority took action and launched an investigation, due to some alleged violations of the laws, thus causing the popular platform to be suspended.
ChatGPT had quickly gained worldwide attention, due to its ability to create essays, songs, exams, and even news articles, based on simple prompts. Despite its popularity, critics had raised their worries on the lack of clarity of where this data was coming from, as well as the sheer amount of personal data that was being collected by OpenAI in order to successfully train the algorithms underlying the platform.
The Italian authorities had criticized OpenAI for not providing valid legal grounds to collect and store such a large amount of personal data. Matters were further compounded when the chatbot was presenting inappropriate answers to kids and proved incapable at handling faulty responses.
In order for OpenAI to be allowed the re-opening of ChatGPT in Italy, the company must make the changes required by the data protection authorities. This means the removal of contractual performance references, and reliance on the accountability principle, either on consent or on a legal valid interest as the applicable legal basis.
