Italian regulators investigate online AI data scraping
Italy's data protection authority, the country's privacy regulator, announced on November 22 that it had launched a “fact-finding” investigation, in which it will look into the practice of collecting data to train artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.
The purpose of the investigation is to ensure that appropriate security measures are in place on public and private websites to prevent “web scraping” of personal data by third parties from “artificial intelligence algorithm” manufacturers, “spiders” used for AI training.
According to the regulator, this “fact-finding survey” applies to all public and private entities established in Italy or acting as data controllers for services that provide freely accessible online personal data in Italy.
Although he didn't name specific companies, he said it's well known that “various AI platforms” are scraping the web to collect large amounts of personal data. He said he would take any necessary action “even urgently” after the investigation.
In July, Google was hit with a class-action lawsuit in the United States over a new privacy policy that breaks down AI data on its web services for the purposes of training its own AI algorithms.
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Italian regulators have invited AI industry experts, academics and others to participate in the process and share views or opinions within 60 days.
Italy's privacy watchdog was one of the first after it banned popular AI chatbot ChatGPT from operating in Italy in March 2023 due to privacy violations. AI replacement.
Earlier this week, Italy, France and Germany reached an agreement on future AI controls, according to a joint paper seen by Reuters. The agreement is expected to help further similar negotiations at EU level.
The three countries supported the idea of creating voluntary commitments for large and small AI providers in the EU.
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