UK Data Regulator Issues Warning Over Generative AI Data Protection Concerns

The UK’s Information Commission’s Office reminds organizations that data protection laws still apply to unfiltered data used to train large language models.

The UK’s data regulator has issued a warning to tech companies about protecting personal information when developing and deploying large language, generative AI models.

Less than a week after Italy’s data privacy regulator banned ChatGPT over alleged privacy violations, the Information Commission’s Office (ICO) published a blog post reminding organizations that data protection laws still apply when the personal information being processed comes from publicly accessible sources.

“Organisations developing or using generative AI should be considering their data protection obligations from the outset, taking a data protection by design and by default approach,” said Stephen Almond, the ICO’s director of technology and innovation, in the post.