Robert Way
- OpenAI plans to appeal a €15M, or $15.59M, fine by Garante, Italy’s data protection agency, which was issued to the startup on Friday for allegedly training ChatGPT without adequate legal basis or transparency.
- The investigation focused on a period from November 2022 through March 2023. Since then, ChatGPT has launched its Privacy Centre, where users can opt out of their data being used for artificial intelligence training.
- “The Garante’s decision is disproportionate, and we will appeal,” said an OpenAI spokesperson, in a statement to Seeking Alpha. “When the Garante ordered us to stop offering ChatGPT in Italy in 2023, we worked with them to reinstate it a month later.”
- “They’ve since recognised our industry-leading approach to protecting privacy in AI, yet this fine is nearly twenty times the revenue we made in Italy during the relevant period,” the Microsoft-backed (NASDAQ:MSFT) company added. “We believe the Garante’s approach undermines Italy’s AI ambitions, but we remain committed to working with privacy authorities worldwide to offer beneficial AI that respects privacy rights.”