Italian Watchdog Tackled AI, Data Breaches and 'Sharenting' in 2024
AI and data breaches were among top issues last year for Italian data protection authority Garante, it said Tuesday in an annual report.
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There were 2,204 data breaches involving public sector organizations such as municipalities and healthcare facilities and private sector companies involved in the telecom, banking and energy sectors, it said. The most serious cases resulted in punitive measures.
The year was also "characterized by interventions in strongly innovative areas," such as emerging new technologies and training AI systems by web scraping, along with continuing efforts to protect vulnerable individuals and safeguard health data, it said. Garante paid particular attention to biometric data and the spread of facial recognition systems.
AI was a large part of the watchdog's activities, as was its search for solutions to reconcile the "hunger for information" about AI with personal rights.
Among other actions, in 2024 it concluded an investigation of ChatGPT and ordered OpenAI to pay a 15 million euro fine and carry out a public information campaign, it said.
Revenge porn was also "alarmingly on the rise," Garante noted. It received 823 reports from people worried about the dissemination of sexually explicit phots and videos, nearly three times higher than in 2023.
The regulator continued to monitor age registrations and age assurance systems on social media. One particular area of concern, it noted, was sharenting, parents constantly sharing online content related to their children. This activity "has been a concern" for Garante, as it poses risks to children's digital identity and personality development. As such, it launched an information campaign titled "Your privacy is worth more than a like."