OpenAI Faces Scrutiny In Germany Over Use Of Personal Data

A regulator said Monday that Germany is joining other European countries in scrutinizing the use of personal data by the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT and demanding clarification from its US maker OpenAI.

Marit Hansen, commissioner for the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein said, “Regional data protection authorities in Europe’s largest economy have created a questionnaire for OpenAI and anticipate a response by June 11, 2023”.

Hansen further said, “We want to know if a data protection impact assessment has been carried out and if the data protection risks are under control”.

“We are requesting information from OpenAI on issues related to the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)”, she added.

“German authorities want to see if OpenAI adequately tells people whose data is used by ChatGPT that they have rights, for example, to access, correct, or even delete their data, as required by EU law”, she continued.

She added that regulators were especially worried about the processing of data belonging to minors.

She went on to say, “As soon as personal citizens are processed, European data protection law must be respected”.

Last month, Italy briefly halted the initiative due to complaints that its data collection violated privacy rules. It has since requested that OpenAI modify its Chatbot so that it can resume operations in the country by the end of April.

The European Union’s central data regulator has established a task force to assist counties in harmonizing their regulations and addressing privacy concerns.

ChatGPT can generate essays, poetry, and discussions from the shortest of prompts and has passed some difficult assessments.

However, it has been dogged by concerns that its abilities could lead to widespread cheating in schools, amplifying falsehoods on the internet, and eventually replacing human jobs.

Furthermore, the chatbot can only work if it is trained on large datasets, raising questions about where OpenAI obtains its data and how it is managed.

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