The Italian GPDP (Personal Data Protection Guarantor) has prohibited the use of ChatGPT with immediate effect. The Italian regulator ordered this Friday to block this OpenAI tool for alleged illegal collection of personal data.

The national authority ensures that the company lacks a legal basis to justify “massive collection and storage of personal data to train ChatGPT algorithms”.

ChatGPT is banned in Italy. As such, processing of Italian users’ data for OpenAI is also limited in the country where they have launched an investigation into the company behind the service. The order is temporary but will not be lifted until ChatGPT complies with the European General Data Protection Regulation.

OpenAI violations according to Italy. In the official statement, the Italian guarantor claims to have found that “no information is provided to users or interested parties whose data is collected by OpenAI, LLC and processed through the ChatGPT service”. It also implies that “there is no adequate legal basis for the collection of personal data and its processing for the purpose of creating the algorithms underlying the operation of ChatGPT”.

In the same way, they also state that although the service is reserved for people who are at least 13 years old according to the terms of use published by OpenAI, they do not have any system to verify the age of the users.

An ongoing investigation. Therefore, they consider ChatGPT to violate Articles 5, 6, 8, 13 and 25 of the Regulation. This limitation to the service is subject to the result of the review, with immediate effect from the new provision. In case of non-compliance with the measure ordered by the guarantor, the institution indicates that the relevant penal and administrative sanctions will be applied.

Likewise, they oblige the recipient of the treatment (OpenAI) to report what attempts have been made to “exercise what has been prescribed” within a maximum period of 20 days, and to ensure that “useful to justify violations”. mentioned above”. According to EU regulation, no response from OpenAI will also be penalized with administrative sanction.

Door opens in other countries. Italy was the country to take the first step against OpenAI for violating the GDPR. However, other countries fulfilling the order (such as Spain) may follow the same steps due to non-compliance with European regulations.