Italy Reverses ChatGPT Ban Pending New Privacy Safeguards
Italy's data protection regulator plans to lift its ban on ChatGPT by the end of April if OpenAI implements required privacy and age verification measures.
Italy’s data protection authority announces plans to lift its ban on OpenAI’s ChatGPT by the end of April. The regulator previously blocked the AI service due to unlawful data processing and a lack of age verification for minors. Now, the Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali states that the service will resume for Italian users once OpenAI meets a strict set of new conditions.
To satisfy these requirements, OpenAI must publish a detailed notice explaining how it processes data and inform both users and non-users of their privacy rights. Additionally, the company must remove claims of contractual performance and instead rely on consent or a legitimate basis for training its algorithms, which aligns the service with European Union GDPR accountability principles.
The regulator also mandates robust age-gating to protect children from inappropriate content. New Italian users must declare they are over 18 or provide parental consent if they are between 13 and 18 years old before accessing the chatbot. OpenAI has a deadline of September 30, 2023, to fully implement this specific age verification mechanism.