A photo taken on Nov 23, 2023 shows the logo of the ChatGPT application developed by US artificial intelligence research organization OpenAI on a smartphone screen (left) and the letters AI on a laptop screen in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany. (PHOTO / AFP)

MILAN — Italy's data protection authority said on Monday it told OpenAI that its artificial intelligence chatbot application ChatGPT breaches data protection rules.

The Italian watchdog, known as Garante - one of the European Union's most proactive in assessing AI platform compliance with the bloc's data privacy regime - last year briefly banned ChatGPT over the alleged breach of EU privacy rules.

Italy was the first West European country to curb ChatGPT, whose rapid development has attracted attention from lawmakers and regulators

At the time, the regulator also launched a probe, which has now concluded that there are elements indicating one or more potential data privacy violations, it said in a statement.

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The Garante said Microsoft, opens new tab-backed OpenAI had 30 days to present defence arguments, and added that its investigation would take into account the work done by a European task force made up of national privacy watchdogs.

Reuters contacted OpenAI for comment.

Italy was the first West European country to curb ChatGPT, whose rapid development has attracted attention from lawmakers and regulators.

Under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), introduced in 2018, any given company found in breach of the rules faces fines of up to 4 percent of the company's global turnover.

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In December, EU lawmakers and governments agreed provisional terms for regulating AI systems like ChatGPT, taking a step closer to setting rules governing the technology.