Google will have to delay its plans to launch its artificial intelligence chatbot Bard in the European Union after the EU’s main data regulator raised privacy concerns.
The Irish Data Protection Board said Tuesday that Google currently provides insufficient information about how Bard complies with EU data privacy rules to prove its compliance with EU law. The Irish Data Protection Board is Google’s primary data regulator in the EU under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Google recently informed the Irish Data Protection Board that they intend to launch Bard in the EU this week,” said Graham Doyle, vice chairman of the Irish Data Protection Board, but said the board “has not received any detailed briefings to date, nor has it seen any data protection impact assessment or any supporting documentation.”
The Irish regulator said they requested and are waiting for a detailed assessment from Google to answer additional questions “as a matter of urgency” about how Bard complies with EU data protection rules. Doyle said, “Bard will not be launched this week.” He said the issue is under “ongoing review” and that the regulator will share the information with other European data agencies as soon as possible.
It is noted that Google has rolled out Bard to 180 countries since March, including the U.S. and the U.K., but not to the European Union, where the region’s powerful privacy regulator has previously filed charges against ChatGPT for mishandling people’s data and lacking a basis to legalize its algorithms under the GDPR.
We said in May that we want to make Bard more widely available, including in the EU, and we will do so responsibly after engaging with experts, regulators and policymakers,” a Google spokesperson said. As part of that process, we’ve been communicating with privacy regulators to address their questions and listen to feedback.”
