BIG PICTURE

Concerns about chatbots’ use of data Italy

Since its launch late last year, ChatGPT may have experienced a meteoric rise, but, in March, it was temporarily banned in Italy over data security concerns.

The country launched an investigation into OpenAI after a cybersecurity breach led to people being shown excerpts of other users’ ChatGPT conversations and their financial information.

With millions of monthly users, ChatGPT – like other large language models – is trained on vast quantities of information available on the internet.

"We actively work to reduce personal data in training our AI systems like ChatGPT, because we want our AI to learn about the world, not about private individuals," OpenAI said in a statement.

But the Italian watchdog cited concerns about how the chatbot processed information in its statement: "We expect all companies active in the EU to respect EU data protection rules. The enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation is the responsibility of EU data protection authorities," a European Commission spokesperson said.