Italian regulators said they told OpenAI that its ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot has violated European Union‘s stringent data privacy rules
Garante, said Monday that it notified San Francisco-based OpenAI of breaches of the EU rules, known as General Data Protection Regulation
The watchdog started investigating ChatGPT last year, when it temporarily banned within Italy the chatbot that can produce text, images and sound in response to users' questions
Based on the results of its “fact-finding activity," the watchdog said it “concluded that the available evidence pointed to the existence of breaches of the provisions” in the EU privacy rules
OpenAI, which has 30 days to reply to the allegations, said it would work constructively with Italian regulators
“We believe our practices align with GDPR and other privacy laws, and we take additional steps to protect people's data and privacy," a company statement said
The company said last year that it fulfilled a raft of conditions that the Garante demanded to get the ChatGPT ban lifted
The growing popularity of generative AI systems like ChatGPT are also drawing increasing scrutiny from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic