Italy bans ChatGPT
The government of Italy has banned ChatGPT(opens in new tab), the AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, saying that it lacks an age verification system and that its collection and processing of user data is in violation of the country's privacy laws.
The order, made by Italy's Data Protection Authority, states that ChatGPT users aren't given any information about the collection and use of their data, and that there's no «legal underpinning» for that data collection, which it says is used to train ChatGPT. It also sayss that testing has shown that information provided by ChatGPT «does not always match factual circumstances»—which is true, chatbots are prone to bullshitting—and that while the terms of service limits its use to people over the age of 13, there's no age verification system in place.
The regulatory body also made note of a «data breach» that occurred on March 20, which it said affected «users’ conversations and information on payments by subscribers.» OpenAI acknowledged the issue(opens in new tab) on March 24, saying it took the system offline «due to a bug in an open-source library which allowed some users to see titles from another active user’s chat history.»
«It’s also possible that the first message of a newly-created conversation was visible in someone else’s chat history if both users were active around the same time,» OpenAI said.
Italy is the first country in the West to ban ChatGPT, although as the BBC notes, it's already blocked in other countries including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Italy may share some of the same reasons for blocking it as those countries, as it is currently governed by a coalition of right-wing and far-right parties—the sort who might take issue with public access to
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