The Court of Rome cancels the 15 million euro fine imposed by the Privacy Guarantor on OpenAI for GDPR violation in 2024

It is an important decision for future decisions of the European Guarantors, even if the reasons are not yet known.

The Court of Rome officially canceled the administrative fine of 15 million euros that the Personal Data Protection Authority had imposed on OpenAI, the Californian company that created ChatGpt, in 2024.

The reasons were not disclosed.

The same court had ordered the precautionary suspension of the fine in question exactly one year ago, in March 2025.

Reactions to the verdict

OpenAI welcomed the verdict, and released a comment via Reuters: “We have always been committed to respecting user privacy and look with interest at the possibility of helping more and more people, businesses and Italian society to benefit from artificial intelligence.” The Guarantor has not yet expressed his opinion on the matter. The online document regarding the investigation opened against ChatGpt in 2023 is still stuck in 2025, with the suspension of the fine by the Court of Rome.

The origins of the dispute and the Guarantor’s objections

The story has its roots in December 2024, when the Privacy Guarantor concluded a long investigation accusing OpenAI of several violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the European legislation that establishes strict rules on how companies must collect, store and use citizens’ personal information.

According to the authority’s initial findings, the company led by Sam Altman would have trained its linguistic models without identifying a correct legal basis, i.e. a valid legal justification that would allow the massive use of data taken from the web.

In addition to the issue of the legal basis, the Guarantor had raised doubts about the transparency of the information provided to users and the lack of effective systems for verifying age.

In particular, there were fears that minors could access unsuitable content or that their data would be processed improperly. The sanction also included the accusation of not having promptly notified the Italian authorities of a cyber incident – the accidental exposure of some users’ data – which occurred in March 2023.

The defensive strategy and the 2025 suspension

OpenAI has always maintained that the fine imposed by the Privacy Guarantor was disproportionate and that its technological processes conformed to the spirit of European laws.

Immediately after the announcement of the fine, the company lodged an appeal with the Court of Rome, obtaining a first partial victory as early as March 2025.

On that occasion, the judges had decided to temporarily suspend the payment of the fine pending a more in-depth evaluation of the merits of the case. That precautionary suspension had already suggested that the American company’s position had legal foundations considered worthy of note by the ordinary judiciary.

The implications for the future of technology in Italy

Although the full reasons for the ruling have not yet been made public, the annulment of the fine suggests a less rigid view on the part of the judges compared to the initial interpretation provided by the data protection authority.

The clash between OpenAI and the Privacy Guarantor was carefully observed throughout the European Union, since Italy was the first Western nation to intervene decisively in the field of generative artificial intelligence, at the time of its strong rise.