In March, Italy"s data protection agency Garante placed a ban on the use of ChatGPT in that country. The ban was due to concerns that the chatbot AI service from the company OpenAI was in violation of Italy"s data protection rules. Today, it was revealed that Italy"s government has lifted the ban against ChatGPT after OpenAI agreed to put in some safeguards to protect the personal data of its users.
The Associated Press reports that some of those privacy additions include adding a signup form that asks users to confirm their age. TechCrunch clarified that the form asks users if they are 18 years old or above, or if they are between 13 and 17 years old, which in that case they need the permission of a parent or guardian.
In addition, ChatGPT users in Italy can now access links to see how the chatbot AI uses its personal info, and how it collects data to train the chatbot. Finally, Italy users can fill in a form to object to having their personal data accessible to ChatGPT for its training.
The new privacy additions show that there continue to be concerns about how chatbots like ChatGPT, Microsoft"s Bing Chat, and Google Bard use online data to generate the answers to users" questions. While these new features are a start, there will likely be more questions on these matters in the months and even years to come.