ChatGPT available to users in Italy a month after temporary ban

Access to the ChatGPT chatbot has been restored in Italy after its maker OpenAI "addressed or clarified" issues raised by Italy's data protection authority, Italian authorities and OpenAI have said. Microsoft Corp-backed OpenAI took ChatGPT offline in Italy last month after the country's Data Protection Authority, also known as Garante, temporarily banned the chatbot and launched a probe into the artificial intelligence application's suspected breach of privacy rules. The Italian Data Protection Authority described its action as provisional "until ChatGPT respects privacy". The watchdog said ChatGPT developer OpenAI had no legal basis to justify "the mass collection and storage of personal data for the purpose of'training' the algorithms underlying the operation of the platform". It further referenced a data breach on March 20 when user conversations and payment information were compromised, a problem the United States firm blamed on a bug.