The European Union (EU) has launched an investigation into Google’s powerful artificial intelligence (AI) model, Pathways Language Model 2 (PaLM2), to assess its compliance with the region’s strict data privacy laws. The investigation, initiated by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), is part of a growing effort by EU regulators to understand how AI systems manage personal data.
As Google’s European headquarters are in Dublin, the Irish DPC acts as the lead authority for the tech giant under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the EU’s comprehensive data privacy framework. The commission has stated that its investigation will focus on whether Google adequately evaluated the potential risks PaLM2’s data processing poses to the rights and freedoms of individuals within the EU.
PaLM2 is a large language model that powers a range of Google’s AI-driven services, including email summarization and other generative AI functions. These models rely on massive amounts of data to perform their tasks, raising concerns about how they handle and process personal information. Google has declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
The investigation into PaLM2 reflects a broader trend in Europe, where regulators are increasingly scrutinizing the practices of major tech companies regarding AI and data privacy. Earlier this month, the Irish DPC announced that Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) had agreed to stop using user data to train its AI chatbot, Grok. This decision came after the DPC took legal action, filing an urgent High Court application to prevent X from processing user data from public posts without consent.
Similarly, Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, suspended plans to use content from European users to train its latest language model following extensive discussions with Irish regulators. These actions highlight the pressure tech giants face in ensuring compliance with EU data laws.
Other countries in the EU have also taken action. Italy’s data privacy regulator temporarily banned ChatGPT in 2022 due to privacy violations, only lifting the ban after OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, agreed to implement measures addressing the regulator’s concerns. This investigation into Google’s PaLM2 AI model is just one example of the growing scrutiny that AI systems are facing in the EU, as regulators work to ensure that these powerful technologies respect the fundamental right to data privacy.
