The Italian city of Trento has been fined $54,000 for abusing AI.

The Italian city of Trento has become the first city to receive a fine for misuse of artificial intelligence (AI), the Italian data protection authority has announced.

Trento conducted two scientific research projects using cameras, microphones and social networks that used AI and violated data protection laws. The city has become the first local authority to be fined 50,000 euros ($54,373) by Italy's data watchdog.

Italy's privacy authority said it recognizes that the municipality acted in good faith, but that the data collected was not anonymized or properly shared with third parties.

” of [Italian Data Protection Authority] He condemned the massive and invasive methods that pose serious risks to the rights and freedoms of the parties concerned, including those of a constitutional nature.

The municipality of Trento said it was considering an appeal against the decision, saying the move by the regulator “shows that the current law is completely inadequate to regulate the use of AI to analyze large amounts of data and improve the safety of the city.”

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The Italian government has been active in its relationship with the evolution of AI. In the year In March 2023, Italy became the first country to ban OpenAI's popular AI chatbot ChatGPT for the first time.

OpenAI lifted the ban after complying with local transparency laws, but Italy continues to be proactive about the technology. In May 2023, the government allocated a million dollar fund for workers at risk of being replaced by AI.

Not long after that, during a parliamentary debate, an Italian senator made a speech using OpenAI's GPT-4 to make a point about the use of AI and create a “serious debate” on the technology in the country.

In November, Italian regulators launched an investigation into the security practices of public and private websites to prevent AI data scraping.

Most recently, on January 5, Italy said that when it holds the presidency of the G7 next June, it plans to tackle the regulation of AI as one of the main issues.

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