OpenAI, the American-based artificial intelligence (AI) development company, is facing charges for using confidential data without informing the Canadian users. The affected Canadian nationals lodged their claims to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) for legal action.

The OPC, led by the head of the privacy unit Philippe Dufresne has started probing the matter. An official announcement dated April 4, Dufresne confirmed that the OPC office would be keener on supervising AI developments to ensure they fully comply with the Canadian privacy requirements.

Impact of AI Technology

Dufresne emphasized the need to protect the privacy of Canadians against the risk posed by emerging technologies, including AI. He tasked the OPC official with roles to assess the risk associated with adopting AI and develop practical strategies to protect users from privacy and security breaches.

However, Dufresne failed to disclose the number of Canadians utilizing the most hyped ChatGPT and the positive impact of AI adoption. The OFC’s measures on the AI adoption mirrors a recent move by the Italian regulators.

On March 20, the tech-savvy Italian community submitted their claims to the data protection unit, outlining the impact of AI technology on their social lives. They lamented that the AI disclosed their information to other users, which violated privacy rights.

After probing the matter, the regulators witnessed that use AI technology supported violation of personal data.
Following this, the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy (CAIDP) group issued a report on March 31 demanding the indefinite suspension of the chatbots in Italy.

The action by the Italian regulators has necessitated other data protection watchdogs from Germany, France, and Ireland to prioritize addressing the risk of AI technology.

Strategies to Mitigate the Data Breaches

Speaking at Handelsblatt, the federal commissioner for Data Protection in Germany, Ulrich Kelber, revealed that they intend to block the use of ChatGPT in the region. Kelber stated that in a scenario where the operation of ChatGPT contravenes the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), his commission would take corrective action to suspend the operation of chatbots.

Besides Germany’s proposal on mitigating the risk of AI, France, and Ireland have consulted the Italian regulators to review the scope of the suspension of AI. Based on the Reuters report issued on April 3, countries in the European Union have approached the Italian data protection department to analyze the risk, benefits, and impacts of adopting stringent regulations on AI technology.

A subsequent report from Spain announced plans to launch an investigation on the impact of adopting ChatGPT. In the meantime, no cases of data violation linked with ChatGPT in Spain have been witnessed.

On March 22, Twitter’s chief executive Elon Musk teamed up with Steve Wozniack, the co-founder of Apple, to submit a petition comprising over 2600 signatories to the US authority calling for the pause on further development on AI. A publication on the Future of Life Institute (FOLI) revealed that Musk and Wozniack, among other players in the tech industry, highlighted the risk of AI on the community’s well-being.