Google will have to postpone starting its artificial intelligence chatbot Bard in the European Union after its main data regulator in the bloc raised privacy concerns.
The Irish Data Protection Commission said Tuesday that the tech giant had so far provided insufficient information about how its generative AI tool protects Europeans' privacy to justify an EU launch. The Dublin-based authority is Google's main European data supervisor under the bloc's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
"Google recently informed the Data Protection Commission of its intention to launch Bard in the EU this week," said Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle.
The watchdog "had not had any detailed briefing nor sight of a data protection impact assessment or any supporting documentation at this point."
The Irish regulator said it asked and is waiting for the company to provide a detailed assessment and answer additional questions about how Bard complies with EU's data protection rules "as a matter of urgency."
"Bard will not now launch this week," said Doyle.
The issue is under "ongoing examination" by the Irish regulator, which will share information with other European data agencies "as soon" as possible.
Amid an AI race, Google has since March rolled out its competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Bing Chat to 180 countries, including both the U.S. and the U.K. But the tech company has so far stayed away from EU countries, where powerful privacy regulators have previously targeted generative-AI sensation ChatGPT for allegedly mishandling people's data and lacking a legal basis for its algorithm under the GDPR.
“We said in May that we wanted to make Bard more widely available, including in the European Union, and that we would do so responsibly, after engagement with experts, regulators and policymakers," said a Google spokesperson. "As part of that process, we’ve been talking with privacy regulators to address their questions and hear feedback.”
ChatGPT was temporarily banned in Italy in March. Several European privacy authorities in Italy, Germany and Spain have started investigating the AI tool; the pan-European network of regulators, the European Data Protection Board, has set up a task force to evaluate it, Politico reports.
