ChatGpt can be reactivated in Italy from May if OpenAi, the company that created it, fulfills the requests of the Privacy Guarantor by April 30th. The Authority communicated this to the company led by Sam Altman.
The clash between Rome and San Francisco could therefore soon come to an end. On March 31, the Guarantor imposed a stop to the company’s collection of data from Italian users. Which consequently blocked the service in Italy, opening a national debate on the move of the Guarantor, culminating in a petition on Change.org asking for the restoration of the service in our country.
Italy was the first Western country to initiate action against OpenAi. But several countries have begun exploring solutions for limiting data collection, including France, Spain and Germany. While Canada has decided to take action against the software similar to that decided by the Italian Guarantor.
The requests of the Privacy Guarantor to OpenAi
Last week a first meeting was held between the top management of the company and the college of the guarantor, which however would not have led to significant progress. Mira Murati, head of technological development of OpenAi, in an interview with our newspaper said she was sure that the company is in full compliance with the Gdpr, the European law on personal data. Thesis of which, however, the Guarantor is not convinced.
OpenAI, according to the requests of the authority, will therefore have to “prepare and make available on its website a transparent information, in which the methods and logic underlying the processing of the data necessary for the functioning of ChatGpt are illustrated”. Furthermore, it will have to disclose the ” rights attributed to users and non-user data subjects”.
The information for users already registered and not to ChatGpt
According to the Guarantor’s prescription, the information must be “easily accessible and placed in a position that allows it to be read before proceeding with any registration for the service”. Two clarifications. The first concerns users who connect from Italy, for whom the information must be “presented before completing the registration and, always before completing the registration, they must be asked to declare that they are of age”.
The second concerns users who are already registered. For them, the information “must be presented at the time of the first access following the reactivation of the service and, on the same occasion, they must be asked to pass an age gate that excludes minor users on the basis of the declared age”.
As for the legal basis of the processing of users’ personal data for algorithm training, the Guarantor ordered OpenAI to “eliminate any reference to the execution of a contract and to indicate, instead, on the basis of the principle of accountability, the consent or the legitimate interest as a prerequisite for using such data, without prejudice to the exercise of one’s powers of verification and assessment subsequent to this choice”.