Italy's privacy regulator Garante announced on Friday that it has decided to impose a fine of 15 million euros (15.58 million dollars) on OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, after concluding its investigation into the use of personal data.

Garante is one of the most active regulators in the EU regarding the assessment of whether AI platforms comply with EU data privacy regulations.

Garante stated that it found OpenAI's processing of users' personal data "was aimed at training ChatGPT without adequate legal basis, violating transparency principles and obligations to inform users."

OpenAI did not immediately comment. It had previously stated that it believes its practices comply with EU privacy laws.

Last year, the Italian regulator briefly banned the use of ChatGPT in Italy due to alleged violations of EU privacy rules.

The service was reinstated after Microsoft-backed OpenAI resolved issues related to users' rights to refuse consent for the use of personal data to train algorithms.