At least two complaints relating to the use of personal data have been filed in France against the company OpenAI and concerning the operation of its conversational robot ChatGPT, mentions AFP. These two complaints were filed Tuesday with the CNIL, the French policeman of personal data.
The first complaint was filed by lawyer Zoé Vilain, president of the association for raising awareness of digital issues Janus International. “We’re not anti-tech, but we want ethical technology,” she said. Zoé Vilain explains that she created an account on the OpenAI site, an American company, in order to use ChatGPT, and that she noticed the absence of “general conditions of use” to accept and of “any privacy policy”.
She therefore asks the CNIL to help her exercise her right of access to her personal information collected by OpenAI. She also notes that she has tried this approach herself with the company, without success.
Article 5 of the GDPR: information about individuals must be accurate, and all data processing must be fair
The second complaint was filed by David Libeau, a developer very invested in the protection of personal data. He mentions in his complaint that he spotted personal information about him by querying ChatGPT on his profile. “When I asked for more information, the algorithm started to fabricate and credit me with creating websites or organizing online protests, which is totally false,” he wrote.
For David Libeau, this contravenes Article 5 of the European Regulation on Personal Data (GDPR), according to which information on individuals must be accurate, and any processing of data must be fair.
France is not the first country to see complaints against OpenAI’s generative AI. On Tuesday, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada announced an investigation into OpenAI. The investigation “was launched following a complaint that personal information was collected, used and disclosed without consent”, the government body said.
Access to ChatGPT has been blocked in Italy
This announcement follows that of the Italian data protection agency which opened an investigation into ChatGPT last week, on the same basis. OpenAI is also suspected by the transalpine authority of having broken data collection rules with its artificial intelligence application.
Access to ChatGPT has therefore been blocked in Italy. The Italian agency alleges “the absence of any legal basis justifying the massive collection and storage of personal data in order to ‘train’ the algorithms that underpin the operation of the platform”.
OpenAI, which does not have an office in the European Union, but has appointed a representative in the European Economic Area, must communicate within 20 days the measures it has taken to respond to the request of the Italian CNIL , under penalty of a fine of up to 20 million euros or up to 4% of its annual worldwide turnover, specifies the authority.
The European Union is preparing a draft regulation on artificial intelligence
The European Union is currently preparing a draft regulation on artificial intelligence which could be finalized by early 2024, for application a few years later.
Europol last week warned of the potential misuse of the chatbot in phishing scams, disinformation and cybercrime, adding its voice to others who are concerned about legal, ethical and IT security issues. posed by this new technology.
Elon Musk – a founder of OpenAI, whose board he later quit – and hundreds of global experts have called for a six-month break from research into AIs more powerful than GPT-4, the latest version of the software on which ChatGPT is based. They evoke “major risks for humanity”.
Since its launch, ChatGPT has aroused great enthusiasm. Its rivals have launched similar products, starting with Google Bard. According to a UBS study released last month, the app reached 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after its launch, making it the fastest growing consumer app in the world. ‘history.