Gov.UK Introduces Government-Sponsored Generative AI Chatbot Trial
A new government trial introduces an OpenAI-powered chatbot on Gov.UK to aid people in locating relevant information.
The Government Digital Service has published a privacy notice for the GOV.UK Chat tool, detailing potential data uses for users of the automated platform.
Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4, the chatbot aims to simplify access to information on business regulations, tax, and support, reducing the time citizens spend on bureaucracy.
According to the document, GOV.UK’s system first excludes sensitive pages, then collects relevant content and transfers it to OpenAI using an API.
Following this, the company’s technology will process the user’s query, examine the relevant GOV.UK content, generate a response, and communicate it back.
GOV.UK stated in a statement: “This month we’re beginning an experimental pilot of GOV.UK Chat, our AI-powered chatbot that allows users, for the first time, to get quick, personalised answers to their questions based on GOV.UK guidance.”
It adds: “GOV.UK Chat enables users to get answers to questions they enter about published GOV.UK content. GOV.UK content includes pages that have gov.uk at the start of the URL… it does not include content created on a department’s own websites or data collected in their services.”
However, users are advised that if they enter personal data in their question, it will be passed on to OpenAI, which developed the ChatGPT AI system.
It also added in January 2024, “As with all GDS’s work, we are committed to protecting users’ privacy and security. For this experiment, we put in safeguards to prevent users from submitting personal data in their query.”
“We also respect the personal data that exists on GOV.UK pages and worked closely with our data protection colleagues throughout the experiment in conducting a data protection impact assessment and mitigating any identified risks. For example, we removed GOV.UK pages with personal data from the system so they could not be sent to the LLM.”
In recent months, the potential use of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools in government has sparked growing debate and scrutiny.