By David Sachs and Adria Calatayud
Italy's privacy authority said it has filed a complaint against ChatGPT owner OpenAI for violating personal-data laws, the latest sign of tightening scrutiny of artificial-intelligence technology by regulators worldwide.
The Italian data-protection regulator said Monday that it believes OpenAI's popular chatbot could have violated European Union privacy laws following a probe that began in March. The authority temporarily banned the popular chatbot last year.
OpenAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. At the time the Italian regulator opened its probe last year, OpenAI said it believed it complied with privacy laws in Europe.
In a statement, the Italian regulator said OpenAI has 30 days to respond to the complaint. Italian authorities would take into account the work of an EU task force on ChatGPT that was set up last year, it said.
The European Data Protection Board launched the task force in April to share information and coordinate possible enforcement actions by the bloc's data-protection authorities. This followed Italy's move to ban ChatGPT in late March, which was lifted about a month later after OpenAI implemented changes demanded by the regulator.
As generative-AI applications such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard have gained popularity, the companies behind them as well as the technologies and data that power these tools have become the subject of regulatory scrutiny in the U.S., Europe and other regions.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission last week said it would investigate AI investments by big tech companies and issued orders seeking information to Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon.com, Anthropic and Google owner Alphabet. Earlier this month, the European Union said it was considering whether to launch a review of Microsoft's investment in OpenAI.
Helena Smolak contributed to this article.
Write to David Sachs at david.sachs@wsj.com and to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-29-24 0903ET
