By Giulia Petroni

Italy's data-protection authority has issued a temporary ban against the processing of Italian users' data by artificial-intelligence platform ChatGPT.

The watchdog said Friday that there was no legal basis justifying the massive collection and storage of personal data in order to train the platform's algorithm, and has opened an investigation. It also said ChatGPT processes data inaccurately and lacks a filter to verify the age of underaged users.

Last week, ChatGPT suffered a data loss regarding user conversations and payment information of its subscribers.

The Italian authority said OpenAI, the company behind the chatbot, must communicate the measures it intends to implement within 20 days, otherwise it will face a penalty of up to 4% of its global annual turnover.

OpenAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Write to Giulia Petroni at giulia.petroni@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 31, 2023 08:58 ET (12:58 GMT)