Italy fines Character.AI over age verification failures

Italian regulator has officially fined Character.AI, €158,000 (roughly $180,500) following an investigation into data protection breaches and deficient child safety measures.

The Italian data protection authority also known as the "Garante" on Thursday, fined Character.AI's parent firm Character Technologies, which lets users—including teenagers—interact with customizable, AI-generated virtual personalities, has been under intense scrutiny across Europe regarding how it handles younger demographics.

Key Violations:

Garante has been one of the most proactive regulators in Europe on AI.

It highlighted several violations of the European Union's strict GDPR data privacy framework, including shortcomings in information provided to users about the processing of their personal data.

The watchdog said the company was late in conducting a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) and appointing an EU representative.

Garante concluded that the platform lacked robust mechanisms to prevent young minors from registering or being exposed to potentially adult or unsuitable content.

The authority also raised concerns about safeguards for minors and the effectiveness of age-verification procedures, saying further protections were needed beyond those already in place.

In 2023, it briefly banned the use of OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot over age-check and data collection issues.