Canada, Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta are investigating ChatGPT together

Les autorités de protection de la life privatee de Canada, du Québec, de la Colombie-Britannique et de l’Alberta annoncent qu’elles enquêteront conjointement sur OpenAI, the société americane à l’origin of ChatGPT, a robot conversational doté d’une Artificial intelligence.

In April, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner’s Office had already opened an investigation into the company, following a complaint that personal information was collected, used and disclosed without consent.

Because AI is so widespread, has significant privacy implications, and affects all Canadians, the four authorities decided to jointly investigate this issue.They said in a statement released Thursday.

This collaboration will allow the four entities to pool their resources and expertise to more effectively enforce privacy laws.

The investigation will focus on whether OpenAI:

• has obtained valid consent to collect, use, and disclose personal information of individuals residing in Canada by ChatGPT;
• fulfill its obligations regarding transparency, access, accuracy of information, and accountability;
• collects, uses, or discloses personal information for purposes that are acceptable, reasonable, or lawful under the circumstances, and whether such collection is limited to information necessary for those purposes.

The statement clarified that each authority would investigate compliance with the law within its jurisdiction and that no further details could be provided at this time as this is an ongoing investigation.

ChatGPT, launched last November, uses written information already available on the Internet to provide detailed, conversational answers to user queries. This technology has so far been used to produce a wide variety of documents and responses, ranging from computer codes to movie scripts. However, concerns have been raised about plagiarism and misinformation.