The German government says it could block ChatGPT over data security

Germany's data protection commissioner, Ulrich Kelber, has warned that the country may follow Italy's lead and block ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot developed by OpenAI, due to concerns over data security.

The Italian data agency recently temporarily banned ChatGPT and launched an investigation into a suspected breach of privacy rules after a cyber security breach led to people being shown excerpts of other users' ChatGPT conversations and their financial information. OpenAI took ChatGPT offline in Italy following the ban.

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During the nine-hour period in which the data breach occurred, exposed data included first and last names, billing addresses, credit card types, credit card expiration dates, and the last four digits of credit card numbers, according to an email sent by OpenAI to one affected customer and seen by the Financial Times.

Kelber stated that Germany has requested more information from Italy regarding its ban, and added that such action could fall under state jurisdiction. However, he did not outline any specific plans.

Privacy watchdogs in France and Ireland have also contacted the Italian data regulator to discuss its findings. While the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) is the lead EU regulator for many global technology companies under the bloc's "one-stop shop" data regime, it is not the lead regulator for OpenAI, which has no offices in the EU.