Italy fines Character.AI's owner €158,000 over minors and privacy notices
Italy's data protection authority fined Character Technologies over weak age checks, a poor privacy notice and late compliance work, and ordered further fixes.
On 9 July 2026, Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, announced a €158,000 fine against Character Technologies Inc., the US company behind Character.AI. The decision itself is dated 3 July. Character.AI lets users, including minors, chat with virtual characters.
The Garante opened the case on its own initiative. It found problems in five areas:
- The privacy notice had deficiencies.
- The data protection impact assessment was prepared late.
- The EU representative was appointed late.
- Safeguards for minors fell short.
- Age verification fell short.
The authority acknowledged measures the company had already taken, but ordered more. Character Technologies must make sure its age checks work, make sure the cooling-off period really stops minors from signing up again after an account freeze, and set minors' profiles to private by default. It must report back within 120 days of receiving the decision.
Why it matters
The fine is small, but the order is more telling. A chatbot can hold very personal conversations, so a regulator's questions go beyond what the service says in its policy. They reach how sign-up works, who can see a profile and whether a block holds.
The late paperwork matters too. An impact assessment is meant to happen before risky processing, and an EU representative gives people and regulators a point of contact. The case shows a European regulator applying ordinary data protection rules to an AI chat product, without waiting for new AI laws.
What you can do
- If a child in your home uses a chatbot, open the account together and read its privacy and visibility settings.
- Check whether a profile or its characters are public, and set them to private where the app allows it.
- Treat age gates as a weak control. Talk about what should not be typed into a chatbot, such as names, addresses and school details.
- Read the privacy notice of any AI companion app before you use it, and look for how long chats are kept and whether they train models.
- If you run an AI service in the EU, check that your impact assessment and EU representative are in place before launch.