{"id":652075,"date":"2026-05-06T18:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T18:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/652075\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T18:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T18:30:12","slug":"openai-violated-canadians-privacy-watchdogs-say-in-call-for-legal-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/652075\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI violated Canadians\u2019 privacy, watchdogs say in call for legal reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada\u2019s privacy<\/a> watchdog said Wednesday that OpenAI<\/a> has committed to better protect Canadians\u2019 personal information, after a joint investigation with three provinces found the company engaged in \u201coverly broad\u201d data collection to train its initial ChatGPT<\/a> AI chatbot models.<\/p>\n

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But Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne and his counterparts in Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta said their investigation has reinforced the need to modernize Canada\u2019s privacy laws for the age of artificial intelligence<\/a>, noting OpenAI was able to take advantage of a lack of guardrails that are now urgently needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOpenAI launched ChatGPT without having fully addressed known privacy issues,\u201d Dufresne said at a press conference in Ottawa. \u201cThis exposed Canadians to potential risks of harm such as breaches and discrimination on the basis of information about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of particular issue was the way OpenAI crawled or \u201cscraped\u201d publicly available online information to train its earlier GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 models that were being used at the time the investigation was launched in 2023.<\/p>\n

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That data collection was done without transparency or the consent of Canadians whose information was used, and even collected information that led to \u201cfactual inaccuracies,\u201d the watchdogs found. Canadians also had no recourse to access their personal information or have it corrected or deleted, the investigation found.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCanadians can trust ChatGPT to handle personal data, federal privacy watchdog says after review\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The report criticizes OpenAI for rushing its ChatGPT products to market before having proper privacy safeguards in place, only addressing concerns after the fact, which violated accountability requirements in the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have some statements from leaders of the organization at the time saying \u2018we felt we had to move, we knew that there were others out there and so we launched it \u2026 having done limited testing,\u201d Dufresne told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that problematic. We found there were things that they could have done, and indeed that they have done now, that should have taken place before this was launched.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Dufresne said OpenAI has since agreed to additional safeguards like a retention policy for personal data as a result of the investigation, and has \u201csignificantly\u201d limited the information it uses to train new and upcoming ChatGPT models.<\/p>\n

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He said OpenAI has also agreed to transparency measures that will keep Canadians informed in both official languages on the company\u2019s data collection, use and retention policies.<\/p>\n

Asked if he believes ChatGPT is safe to use today, Dufresne said \u201cyes\u201d and that the issues raised in the report have been \u201cconditionally resolved,\u201d with OpenAI agreeing to continued compliance monitoring.<\/p>\n

But British Columbia Privacy Commissioner Michael Harvey suggested that ChatGPT by design \u201ccannot be compliant\u201d with the province\u2019s privacy law as currently written, which forbids companies from relying on \u201cimplied consent\u201d if it is not collecting the data itself, but rather third parties like another website.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that we are also encouraged by many of the things that we\u2019ve seen ChatGPT do over the course of the investigation, and we\u2019re also encouraged by a number of the commitments that they\u2019ve committed to make,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The report notes OpenAI disagreed with the commissioners\u2019 findings but nevertheless agreed to measures meant to address their concerns and prevent further privacy law violations.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for OpenAI pointed to a bilingual blog post published Wednesday<\/a> by the company \u201cfollowing a collaborative process with the commissioners\u201d that outlines its approach to privacy, how Canadians\u2019 data may be used, and the \u201ccontrols\u201d available to users.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe care deeply about the people who use ChatGPT, and protecting their privacy is central to how we build,\u201d the post says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also recognize that protecting privacy and addressing serious risks of harm have to work together. We take that responsibility seriously, and we continue to strengthen how we detect and respond to credible threats of violence while maintaining privacy safeguards.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:15
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOpenAI limits access to new model as firms warn of AI-driven cyberattacks\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tAI has strained privacy laws to ‘breaking point,’ B.C.’s watchdog says\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Harvey said the findings show the need for other AI companies to be restrained through modernized privacy laws in a way that OpenAI wasn\u2019t, in order to prevent similar situations.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re left at an impasse,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the one hand, AI applications have potentially transformative benefits. But in certain cases, such as the one before us, applications are developed without adequate privacy considerations. And on the other hand, those privacy laws were written for a different era and are strained to the breaking point. Both companies and the law have to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:39
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAI regulation and Canadians\u2019 privacy in wake of Tumbler Ridge shooting\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Dufresne said he has repeatedly called for better oversight powers under the federal PIPEDA law, as well as modernized language that restrains AI companies from overly broad and accountability-free data harvesting.<\/p>\n

Alberta Privacy Commissioner Diane McLeod noted that AI models and products are already being developed in Canada in ways that adhere to current privacy laws, but also stressed the need for new guardrails.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome may worry that we are trying to close the barn door after the horse is already bolted. There is a grain of truth to that,\u201d she said. \u201cTechnologies are moving so quickly that it is indeed challenging, and perhaps even impossible, to get ahead of it with legislation or regulation.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHowever, there is always an opportunity to erect defence or corral around the barn, if you allow me to take the metaphor further. Guardrails must be established to ensure technology companies are accountable for privacy protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harvey said he was writing to the B.C. government to request legislation that will update the province\u2019s privacy law.<\/p>\n

AI Minister Evan Solomon has promised legislation to modernize PIPEDA will be introduced shortly.<\/p>\n

Global News has reached out to Solomon\u2019s office for comment on the privacy commissioners\u2019 report.<\/p>\n

More to come\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s privacy watchdog said Wednesday that OpenAI has committed to better protect Canadians\u2019 personal information, after a joint…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,2140,278,5545,64,61],"class_list":["post-652075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chatgpt","tag-openai","tag-privacy","tag-tech","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}