Italy’s privacy watchdog fines OpenAI for ChatGPT’s violations in collecting users personal data

Advertisement

Advertise with us

ROME (AP) — Italy’s data protection watchdog said Friday it has fined OpenAI 15 million euros ($15.6 million) after wrapping up a probe into the collection of personal data by the U.S. artificial intelligence company's popular chatbot ChatGPT.

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/12/2024 (633 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ROME (AP) — Italy’s data protection watchdog said Friday it has fined OpenAI 15 million euros ($15.6 million) after wrapping up a probe into the collection of personal data by the U.S. artificial intelligence company’s popular chatbot ChatGPT.

The country’s privacy watchdog, known as Garante, said its investigation showed that OpenAI processed users’ personal data to train ChatGPT “without having an adequate legal basis and violated the principle of transparency and the related information obligations towards users”.

OpenAI dubbed the decision “disproportionate” and said it will appeal.

FILE - The OpenAI logo is displayed on a cell phone in front of an image generated by ChatGPT's Dall-E text-to-image model, Dec. 8, 2023, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)
FILE - The OpenAI logo is displayed on a cell phone in front of an image generated by ChatGPT's Dall-E text-to-image model, Dec. 8, 2023, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

“When the Garante ordered us to stop offering ChatGPT in Italy in 2023, we worked with them to reinstate it a month later,” an OpenAI spokesperson said Friday in an emailed statement. “They’ve since recognized our industry-leading approach to protecting privacy in AI, yet this fine is nearly 20 times the revenue we made in Italy during the relevant period.”

OpenAI added, however, it remained “committed to working with privacy authorities worldwide to offer beneficial AI that respects privacy rights.”

The investigation, launched last year, also found that OpenAI didn’t provide an “adequate age verification system” to prevent users under 13 years of age from being exposed to inappropriate AI-generated content, the watchdog said.

The Italian authority also ordered OpenAI to launch a six-month campaign on different Italian media to raise public awareness about ChatGPT, specifically in regard to data collection.

The booming popularity of generative artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT has drawn scrutiny from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.

Regulators in the U.S. and Europe have been examining OpenAI and other companies that have played a key part in the AI boom, while governments around the world have been drawing up rules to protect against risks posed by AI systems, led by the European Union’s AI Act, a comprehensive rulebook for artificial intelligence.

___

AP Business Writer Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this report

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Italy’s privacy watchdog fines OpenAI for ChatGPT’s violations in collecting users personal data

Giada Zampano, The Associated Press 2 minute read Preview

Italy’s privacy watchdog fines OpenAI for ChatGPT’s violations in collecting users personal data

Giada Zampano, The Associated Press 2 minute read Friday, Dec. 20, 2024

ROME (AP) — Italy’s data protection watchdog said Friday it has fined OpenAI 15 million euros ($15.6 million) after wrapping up a probe into the collection of personal data by the U.S. artificial intelligence company's popular chatbot ChatGPT.

The country’s privacy watchdog, known as Garante, said its investigation showed that OpenAI processed users’ personal data to train ChatGPT “without having an adequate legal basis and violated the principle of transparency and the related information obligations towards users”.

OpenAI dubbed the decision “disproportionate” and said it will appeal.

“When the Garante ordered us to stop offering ChatGPT in Italy in 2023, we worked with them to reinstate it a month later,” an OpenAI spokesperson said Friday in an emailed statement. “They’ve since recognized our industry-leading approach to protecting privacy in AI, yet this fine is nearly 20 times the revenue we made in Italy during the relevant period.”

Read
Friday, Dec. 20, 2024

Bjorck ready to rock Prospect Challenge

Mike McIntyre 6 minute read Preview

Bjorck ready to rock Prospect Challenge

Mike McIntyre 6 minute read Friday, Sep. 11, 2026

Viggo Bjorck isn’t getting ahead of himself, nor is he taking anything for granted.

A spot in the opening night lineup for the Winnipeg Jets?

Whoa, there.

The 18-year-old apparently isn’t even assuming he has an invitation to the NHL team’s main training camp when it starts next week.

Read
Friday, Sep. 11, 2026

Contact Us

6 minute read Monday, Jul. 27, 2026

Contact UsJUMP: Editorial

Delivery

Promotions

Advertising |Photo Reprints

Privacy Inquiries

Newsmedia Council

By TelephoneIf the number you need is not listed below, call the Winnipeg Free Press main switchboard, at 204-697-7000, it's open Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. All numbers are area code204 unless otherwise noted.

E-Mailfpcirc@freepress.mb.ca |

Retired sportscaster Scott Oake determined as fundraising for women's addictions treatment facility enters home stretch

Melissa Martin 4 minute read Preview

Retired sportscaster Scott Oake determined as fundraising for women's addictions treatment facility enters home stretch

Melissa Martin 4 minute read Thursday, Sep. 10, 2026

For now, the patch of land just east of the Victoria Hospital doesn’t look like much: just a field of rocks, mounded dirt, and concrete piles driven into the earth. Yet when Scott Oake looks over the site, he can already imagine how it will look in just over a year’s time, when the new Anne Oake Family Recovery Centre is expected to open.

It’s easier to picture this time around. In 2020, when the recently-retired CBC sportscaster and his late wife, Anne, were building their first labour of intermingled grief and love, the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre for men, it was hard for him to wrap his mind around how a raw construction site could transform into a welcoming addictions treatment facility.

When that centre opened in 2021, Oake found it looked “almost identical” to the architect’s renderings. So it’s easy to hope the Anne Oake Centre will be the same. It will be the first facility of its kind, its founders believe, not only in Canada but in North America: a place where 50 to 70 women can pursue sobriety while staying with their children.

“At Bruce Oake there’s a culture of love, and most of all a culture of hope,” Oake said, speaking at the site Thursday after a media conference to announce the final push of the centre’s fundraising campaign. “I can feel it every time I walk into that building. And I know it will be the same here.”

Read
Thursday, Sep. 10, 2026

Puzzles Palace

1 minute read Monday, Jul. 27, 2026

To solve our puzzles, please subscribe with this special offer: |

Canadians loving Carney’s decision to stand tall against floundering U.S. bully

Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Preview

Canadians loving Carney’s decision to stand tall against floundering U.S. bully

Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Friday, Sep. 11, 2026

It’s hard to imagine a more dramatic political contrast than the one unfolding on opposite sides of the Canada-U.S. border.

Mark Carney is fighting a trade war with Donald Trump, taking the occasional verbal punch from the American president and imposing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products.

And the prime minister is being rewarded for it politically.

Trump, meanwhile, is fighting pretty much everyone he can find — including some of America’s closest allies — and his own voters are increasingly giving him the political equivalent of a raised middle finger. That’s quite a tale of two leaders.

Read
Friday, Sep. 11, 2026