The Italian Data Protection Authority has temporarily banned ChatGPT amid concerns that the artificial intelligence tool violated the country’s policies on data collection. Italy’s privacy watchdog described the ChatGPT ban as a provisional measure until the company respects privacy. The authority also referred to a data breach suffered by OpenAI on 20th March, which partly exposed conversations and some users’ personal details including email addresses and the last four digits of their credit cards.
Italy Became the First Country to Initiate ChatGPT Ban
While ChatGPT remains inaccessible to countries like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Italy became the first country to completely ban the infamous chatbot over privacy concerns. ChatGPT founder Sam Altman said Italy is one of his favorite countries, he said; “We of course defer to the Italian government and have ceased offering ChatGPT in Italy (though we think we are following all privacy laws). Italy is one of my favorite countries and I look forward to visiting again soon!”
We of course defer to the Italian government and have ceased offering ChatGPT in Italy (though we think we are following all privacy laws).
Italy is one of my favorite countries and I look forward to visiting again soon!
— Sam Altman (@sama) March 31, 2023
The Italian privacy watchdog noted that the lack of age verification exposes children to receiving responses that are absolutely inappropriate to their age and awareness, even though the service is allegedly addressed to users aged above 13 according to OpenAI’s terms of service. ChatGPT has been given 20 days to respond or they might face a fine of up to either €20m or 4% of annual global revenue.
Tech Leaders Call for Immediate Pause on the AI Wars
The development came as tech leaders around the world, including more than 1,000 artificial intelligence experts, researchers, backers, and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk called for an immediate pause in the creation of AI for at least six months, so the capabilities and dangers of systems such as GPT-4 can be properly studied and mitigated.
Also read: Google Launches its ChatGPT Rival in US and UK
