The German government has revealed that it may follow Italy’s lead and block the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT due to data security concerns.
In comments published on Monday, Germany’s data protection commissioner told the Handelsblatt newspaper.
Microsoft-backed On Friday, OpenAI took ChatGPT offline in Italy after the national data agency temporarily banned the chatbot and launched an investigation into a possible breach of privacy rules by the artificial intelligence application.
“In principle, such action is also possible in Germany,” Ulrich Kelber said, adding that it would fall under state jurisdiction. However, he did not outline any such plans.
According to Kelber, Germany has requested additional information from Italy regarding the ban.
Privacy watchdogs in France and Ireland said they had also contacted Italy’s data regulator to discuss the report’s findings.
“We are following up with the Italian regulator to understand the basis for their action, and we will coordinate with all EU data protection authorities on this matter,” said an Irish Data Protection Commissioner spokesperson.
The Italian investigation into OpenAI was launched following a cyber security breach last week that exposed people to excerpts of other users’ ChatGPT conversations as well as their financial information.
It accused OpenAI of failing to verify the age of ChatGPT users, who must be 13 or older. Italy is the first Western country to take legal action against an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot.
On Friday, OpenAI stated that it is actively working to reduce personal data when training its AI systems.
