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On November 29, Italy’s data protection watchdog (Garante) issued a warning to publisher GEDI regarding its planned collaboration with OpenAI.
The regulator highlighted concerns that such data sharing could violate the European Union’s stringent data protection laws, prioritizing safeguarding personal information.
GEDI Clarifies No Personal Data Is Sold in OpenAI Partnership
According to Garante, newspaper archives, such as those held by GEDI, contain the personal stories and sensitive data of millions of people. This data requires careful protection and cannot be licensed to third parties to train artificial intelligence without careful consideration and safeguards.
OpenAI partners with Italian media group GEDI to integrate content from publications like La Repubblica and La Stampa into ChatGPT, improving its relevance for Italian users and expanding GEDI's reach through AI-powered translations pic.twitter.com/m0HqJEHytm
— Tibor Blaho (@btibor91) September 26, 2024
Furthermore, the agency warned that if GEDI were to share this personal data with OpenAI, it could breach EU regulations, leading to potential legal and financial consequences, including sanctions.
GEDI, publisher of La Repubblica and the Italian edition of HuffPost, announced its partnership with OpenAI in September.
The collaboration would allow ChatGPT users to access content from GEDI’s publications, including attributed quotes and links. Additionally, GEDI’s journalistic material could be used to enhance the accuracy of OpenAI’s AI models.
Responding to these regulatory concerns, GEDI said no personal data will be sold or shared as part of the agreement with OpenAI. Moreover, the project remains in the planning stages as the company engages in ongoing discussions with regulatory authorities.
This scrutiny of OpenAI isn’t unprecedented in Italy, as the company had faced similar challenges in the past over EU privacy law compliance, including a temporary suspension of ChatGPT services in the country last year.
The situation reflects broader global concerns about AI data practices. However, these challenges extend beyond EU regulators and Italy. Major news outlets are also taking up action against OpenAI.
Several major Canadian news outlets, including CBC, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI. The suit accuses the company of copyright infringement by scraping articles from various news sources without permission or compensation.
ANI Sues ChatGPT Maker OpenAI Over Copyright, Fake Rahul Gandhi Attribution https://t.co/ICPUgH5mRN pic.twitter.com/SQUyGKc41t
— NDTV (@ndtv) November 19, 2024
This legal action adds to a growing list of several concerns against the use of third-party content to train OpenAI’s chatbot. More recently, Asian News International (ANI), one of India’s largest news agencies, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for allegedly using its content to train its AI models without consent.
