Germany is joining other European nations in scrutinizing the use of personal data by the popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT and demanding answers from its US maker OpenAI, a regulator said on Monday.
Regional data protection authorities in Europe’s top economy have compiled a questionnaire for OpenAI and expect a response by June 11, said Marit Hansen, commissioner for the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.
“We want to know if a data protection impact assessment has been carried out and if the data protection risks are under control,” Hansen said. “We are asking OpenAI for information on issues that stem from the European General Data Protection Regulation.”
Photo: Reuters
German authorities want to verify whether OpenAI under EU law sufficiently informs people whose data are used by ChatGPT that they “have rights, for example to access, correct or even delete their data,” she said.
It is also necessary to “clarify how these rights can be exercised,” she said, adding that regulators were particularly concerned about the processing of data relating to minors.
“As soon as personal data of European citizens is processed, European data protection law must be respected,” she said.
Italy last month temporarily banned the program over allegations its data-gathering broke privacy laws. It has since asked OpenAI to adjust its chatbot so it could be back online in the country at the end of this month.
France’s regulator earlier this month said that it had opened a formal procedure after receiving five complaints, while Spain’s AEPD data protection agency said it had opened an inquiry into the software and its US owner.
The EU’s central data regulator has formed a task force to help countries harmonize their policies and address privacy concerns.
Meanwhile, Cisco Systems Inc warned that AI software such as ChatGPT would make phishing attempts much harder to detect, requiring companies to adopt new defenses.
About 80 percent of illicit access into computer systems already comes via phishing, where hackers send e-mail or texts to people hoping to trick them into opening a malicious link.
AI tools can quickly customize those missives, luring more people into hackers’ schemes, said Jeetu Patel, the head of Cisco’s security and collaboration units.
“Attacks are going to get much more bespoke,” he said on Monday during a briefing in San Francisco, which is hosting the RSA Conference this week.
Until now, phishing e-mails have been relatively easy to spot because they are not tailored to individual recipients. They often have spelling mistakes and other giveaways. With the new generation of attacks, it would be harder to count on human users to spot the ruse, increasing the threat of network shutdowns and extortion attempts.
The solution is to rapidly sift through Internet traffic data and identify patterns that indicate something bad is about to happen or has just happened, Patel said.
Cisco sees this as an opportunity. The company, which leads the market for networking equipment, can use its position to analyze data flows, he said.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
DOLLAR SIGNS: The central bank rejected claims that the NT dollar had appreciated 10 percentage points more than the yen or the won against the greenback The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell for a sixth day to its weakest level in three months, driven by equity-related outflows and reactions to an economics official’s exchange rate remarks. The NT dollar slid NT$0.197, or 0.65 percent, to close at NT$30.505 per US dollar, central bank data showed. The local currency has depreciated 1.97 percent so far this month, ranking as the weakest performer among Asian currencies. Dealers attributed the retreat to foreign investors wiring capital gains and dividends abroad after taking profit in local shares. They also pointed to reports that Washington might consider taking equity stakes in chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor
A German company is putting used electric vehicle batteries to new use by stacking them into fridge-size units that homes and businesses can use to store their excess solar and wind energy. This week, the company Voltfang — which means “catching volts” — opened its first industrial site in Aachen, Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. With about 100 staff, Voltfang says it is the biggest facility of its kind in Europe in the budding sector of refurbishing lithium-ion batteries. Its CEO David Oudsandji hopes it would help Europe’s biggest economy ween itself off fossil fuels and increasingly rely on climate-friendly renewables. While
RSS