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Federal and provincial watchdogs say OpenAI failed to respect Canadian privacy laws when training its artificial intelligence-powered ChatGPT chatbot.
The conclusion came in a report released Wednesday following a joint investigation by federal privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne and his counterparts from British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec.
ChatGPT, released in November 2022, is a popular conversation-style tool that responds to online users' prompts with a wide range of information almost instantly — responses that may or may not be accurate.
They found OpenAI's collection of information to train its models was overly broad, resulting in the compilation and use of sensitive personal details.
The privacy watchdogs said this could include data about individuals' health conditions and political views, as well as information concerning children.
The probe found OpenAI did not clearly explain that personal information collected from publicly accessible sources could include data from social media, discussion forums and other similar websites.
"OpenAI launched ChatGPT without having fully addressed known privacy issues," Dufresne said in French at a news conference. "This exposed Canadians to potential risks of harm such as breaches and discrimination on the basis of information about them."
The privacy watchdogs said OpenAI provided inadequate notifications about potential inaccuracies in ChatGPT responses, and until recently had not conducted an assessment to validate the accuracy of any personal information included in responses.
OpenAI also did not provide all individuals with an easily accessible and effective mechanism to access, correct and delete their personal information, the watchdogs said.
Dufresne said OpenAI took important steps to improve privacy protections and has also agreed to implement further measures to address his office's concerns.
"These measures will significantly limit the personal information that is used to train new ChatGPT models, and will better protect the fundamental right to privacy of Canadians," he said. "They will also make Canadians more aware of the implications of using ChatGPT."
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