Poland’s regulator opens probe into ChatGPT after a complaint

Poland’s data protection authority has opened an investigation into a complaint about OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Remember we mentioned that regulatory AI landscape in Poland is in its infancy? Here’s another minor, yet significant development.

Poland’s Personal Data Protection Office (@UODOgov_pl) is investigating a complaint concerning #ChatGPT. The complainant alleges that #OpenAI…

— secgen.eu (@secgen_eu) September 21, 2023

The complainant accused Sam Altman’s company of processing data in an illegal and unreliable manner. He also noted that data-collection rules are opaque.

The head of the agency, Jan Nowak, stressed that this is not the first time questions have arisen about the chatbot’s compliance with European data protection and privacy principles.

“In this case, the applicant turned to the Personal Data Protection Office after his notices […] were not addressed by OpenAI. It turned out that ChatGPT, in response to the request, generated false information about the applicant,” the official explained.

According to him, the chatbot gave the user “evasive, misleading and internally contradictory responses,” which “only heightened concerns about the legality and transparency of the data processing by the creator of this tool.”

At the same time, Nowak acknowledged that a potential lawsuit against OpenAI could be difficult, as it concerns a company registered outside the EU.

OpenAI has encountered problems in Europe before. In March, the Italian regulator ordered block ChatGPT for “illegal collection of personal data”.

Germany later announced about a possible suspension of the tool, and authorities in France and Ireland decided to wait for the Italian colleagues’ results. The UK’s Information Commissionerrs Office issued a warning about the inadmissibility of using personal data for developing chatbots.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada also launched an inquiry into the OpenAI project.

In August, global ChatGPT traffic fell by 3.2%, to 1.43 billion visits, according to Similarweb.