{"id":13584,"date":"2026-07-27T15:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T13:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orsingher.com\/?p=13584"},"modified":"2026-07-27T16:21:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T14:21:31","slug":"ai-the-italian-dpa-fines-character-ai-for-unlawful-processing-of-minors-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orsingher.com\/it\/ai-the-italian-dpa-fines-character-ai-for-unlawful-processing-of-minors-data\/","title":{"rendered":"AI | The Italian DPA fines Character.AI for unlawful processing of minors\u2019 data"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpdp.it\/home\/docweb\/-\/docweb-display\/docweb\/10269594\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">press release<\/a>\u00a0dated\u00a09\u00a0July 2026,\u00a0the Italian\u00a0Data Protection\u00a0Authority\u00a0(<em>Italian DPA<\/em>)\u00a0announced the issuance of a fine of\u00a0euro\u00a0158,000\u00a0against\u00a0Character Technologies, Inc., the provider of the generative\u00a0artificial intelligence\u00a0(<em>AI<\/em>)\u00a0system\u00a0Character.AI\u00a0which\u00a0enables users to interact with AI-generated characters, including both pre-existing and user-created\u00a0figures.\u00a0A key\u00a0point\u00a0of the decision concerns the adequacy of the company\u2019s age verification measures. According to the Italian DPA, the current system, introduced in November 2025, provides an adequate level of protection because it combines an age gate with a multi-layered age-assurance mechanism that verifies the plausibility of\u00a0users\u2019\u00a0declared age during their use of the service through a proprietary age prediction model. Where necessary, a secondary verification process carried out by an independent third-party\u00a0provider is triggered.\u00a0Additional\u00a0safeguards, including\u00a0a dedicated\u00a0experience for minors, restrictions on content and functionalities, and parental supervision tools, have also been implemented.\u00a0By contrast, the\u00a0previous\u00a0system, which relied solely on an age gate based on users&#8217; self-declaration, was considered ineffective.<\/p>\n<p>The Italian DPA clarified that, although the GDPR does not expressly require controllers to implement age verification systems and no harmonised EU standard currently exists on the matter, controllers remain under an obligation to adopt appropriate and demonstrably effective measures to protect minors, taking into account the nature of the processing, the risks involved and the principles of privacy by design and by default. To this extent, age verification systems play a crucial role in ensuring compliance with the key principles of data protection.<\/p>\n<p>Newsletter n. 120 &#8211; July 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With a\u00a0press release\u00a0dated\u00a09\u00a0July 2026,\u00a0the Italian\u00a0Data Protection\u00a0Authority\u00a0(Italian DPA)\u00a0announced the issuance of a fine of\u00a0euro\u00a0158,000\u00a0against\u00a0Character Technologies, Inc., the provider of the generative\u00a0artificial intelligence\u00a0(AI)\u00a0system\u00a0Character.AI\u00a0which\u00a0enables users to interact with AI-generated characters, including both pre-existing and user-created\u00a0figures.\u00a0A key\u00a0point\u00a0of the decision concerns the adequacy of the company\u2019s age verification measures. According to the Italian DPA, the current system, introduced in November [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletters"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orsingher.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orsingher.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orsingher.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orsingher.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orsingher.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13584"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/orsingher.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13663,"href":"https:\/\/orsingher.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584\/revisions\/13663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orsingher.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orsingher.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orsingher.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}