According to a report by the Financial Associated Press, the Italian data protection agency launched an investigation into the illegal collection of user information by OpenAI. The Italian Personal Data Protection Agency announced today that it will ban the use of the chatbot ChatGPT with immediate effect and restrict the processing of Italian user information by OpenAI, an American artificial intelligence company that developed the platform.

The Italian Personal Data Protection Agency also pointed out that on March 20, there was a "loss of user conversation data and payment information for payment services" on the ChatGPT platform. The platform did not inform about the collection and processing of user information, and lacked a legal basis for collecting and storing a large amount of personal information. OpenAI “must inform the Italian Personal Data Protection Agency, through its representative in Europe, of the measures taken by the company to implement the agency’s request within 20 days” or face a fine of up to 20 million euros or 4% of the company’s annual global turnover .