Italy has become the first Western country to block OpenAI’s ChatGPT, citing privacy concerns. The Italian data-protection authority has banned and is investigating the chatbot, which uses natural language processing to answer questions and is used by millions of people globally. The watchdog said ChatGPT had suffered a data breach and was illegally collecting personal data. It also said the app’s lack of age verification was exposing minors to inappropriate content. Google’s rival chatbot, Bard, is now only available to users over 18 due to the same concerns.