Italy’s data privacy regulator has banned ChatGPT over alleged privacy violations relating to the chatbot’s collection and storage of personal data. With immediate effect, the Guarantor for the protection of personal data has ordered the temporary limitation of the processing of data of Italian users by ChatGPT parent firm OpenAI until it complies with EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy laws. It has also launched an investigation into ChatGPT, the Guarantor said. The ban comes in the wake of an open letter in which Twitter owner Elon Musk and a group AI industry executives called for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful than OpenAI’s newly launched GPT-4, citing potential risks to society.