The data protection authorities of the federal states are investigating possible violations of the artificial intelligence (AI)-based ChatGPT app against the German General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

“The data protection conference’s AI working group has taken up the topic,” conference chairwoman, Schleswig-Holstein data protection officer Marit Hansen, told Reuters. digital media company Table.Media. She stressed that she sees this not only as data protection risks, but also as policy challenges.

Hansen pointed out that those responsible for providing and using AI language models would of course have to comply with GDPR requirements. “This now needs to be verified,” the data protection officer said.

The conference will also take care of getting the information from Italian data protection officials where ChatGPT has been blocked. So far, however, there have been no official complaints against ChatGPT in Germany.

According to information from Table.Media, the subject came up at the data protection conference on Monday because there had been requests from supervisory authorities regarding the extremely powerful AI.

“Obviously, the risks are broader than ‘simple’ data protection, so that action is required not only from the data protection supervisory authority and, for example, from the authorities national media, but also politics and legislation,” said Hansen.

Federal Data Protection Commissioner Ulrich Kelber on Monday called a ChatGPT blocking in Germany possible. On the other hand, the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport rejects such an approach.

investigation in Canada

Canada has opened an investigation into the American company OpenAI, which is behind the ChatGPT chatbot. The investigation was launched following a complaint about the “alleged collection, use and disclosure of personal information without consent,” the office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said on Tuesday.

“We need to keep up with rapid technological advances – and even be ahead of them,” added data protection commissioner Philippe Dufresne.

ChatGPT creates texts using artificial intelligence (AI). Users can specify individual commands or phrases, which the system then completes independently using massive amounts of data from the Internet.

Critics object that it is unclear where ChatGPT and its competitors get their data from and how they process it. The move by Canada’s privacy commissioner comes amid growing calls for increased oversight of AI-powered technologies.

Last week, tech billionaire Elon Musk and many pundits called for a pause in the development of particularly advanced AI. (AFP)