OpenAI Committed To Transparency Of ChatGPT User Data After Prohibition In Italy

JAKARTA - OpenAI, a company backed by Microsoft Corp, plans to present measures to address concerns that led to a ban on chatbot ChatGPT in Italy last week, Italian data protection agency Garante announced.

OpenAI suspended access to ChatGPT in Italy after Garante last week decided to temporarily limit it and began an investigation into alleged violations of privacy rules.

The agency last week accused OpenAI of failing to check the age of ChatGPT users and "the legal association justifying the massive collection and storage of personal data".

On Thursday, April 6, Garante stated that it did not intend to stop the development of artificial intelligence (AI), but repeated the importance of respecting the rules aimed at protecting the personal data of Italians and Europeans.

In a late-night video conference Wednesday, April 5 attended by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI promised to be more transparent in managing user data and verifying user age, Garante said.

The company said it would send documents to Garante regarding measures to respond to their requests on Thursday.

The data authority said it would evaluate the proposal submitted by OpenAI. Sources familiar with the matter said it would take several days to assess the contents of the letter.

OpenAI, based in San Francisco, made no comment on the statement issued by the agent.

On Thursday, the company published a blog post entitled "Our approach to AI security", stating that it is working to develop "policies nuanced towards behavior that represent real risks for people."

"We don't use data to sell our services, advertise, or build user profiles," OpenAI said. "We use data to make our models more helpful for users. For example, ChatGPT is getting better through further training with conversations users have had with it.

"Although some of our training data includes personal information available on the public internet, we want our models to learn about the world, not private individuals."

The company says it has removed personal information from their datasets as far as possible, set up a model to reject user requests requesting that information, and will respond to individual requests to remove their data from their systems.

Italy's ban has attracted the attention of other privacy regulators in Europe who are studying whether tougher measures are needed for chatbots and whether to coordinate such actions.

In February, Garante banned AI Replica chatbot companies from using Italian users' personal data, citing risks for children and individuals who are emotionally fragile.