Italy's Regulator Is Actively Confronting AI and Big Tech

Italy's Garante has established itself as one of Europe's most assertive data protection authorities, particularly toward AI companies. On December 20, 2024, the Garante concluded its investigation into OpenAI and imposed a €15 million fine, citing the absence of an appropriate legal basis for processing personal data used to train ChatGPT, failure to fulfil transparency obligations, and insufficient age verification measures to protect minors. The fine also included €320,000 specifically for OpenAI's failure to notify the Garante of a March 2023 breach affecting 440 Italian users within the required 72 hours.

854 Reports of Sextortion in a Single Year

Behind the corporate enforcement numbers is a genuinely distressing statistic about ordinary Italians. According to the Garante's 2025 Annual Report, the authority received 854 reports concerning the dissemination or threatened dissemination of intimate material, primarily involving cases of sextortion. This is one of the clearest illustrations of how personal data exposure — photos, videos, private messages — translates directly into real harm for individual victims, not just abstract corporate compliance failures.

Breach Notifications Are Rising, Not Falling

Despite active enforcement, the volume of breaches hitting Italian organizations and individuals continues to climb. The Garante's 2025 report recorded 2,415 data breach notifications, an increase compared with 2024, alongside more than €37 million in fines collected and 130 inspections carried out. Recent inspection activity has specifically focused on data breaches involving public databases, biometric recognition systems used by banks, and electronic health records — sectors where a single breach can expose deeply sensitive personal information.

Even Workplace Email Metadata Is Under Scrutiny

Italy has also moved to protect a category of data many people don't think about: metadata generated by everyday email and browsing activity at work. In April 2025, the Garante issued its first fine under new 2024 guidelines — €50,000 against the Lombardy Region — for retaining email metadata, including browsing information, for 90 days when only 21 days is permitted without additional authorization. Metadata can reveal patterns of behaviour and relationships even without message content, and Italy's regulator has recognized that as a real privacy risk.

What Italian Users Should Do Right Now

A VPN encrypts your internet traffic and masks your real IP address, reducing your exposure to the kind of large-scale data collection and profiling the Garante has repeatedly flagged — including from AI systems and public databases you never directly interacted with. Choose a VPN with a verified no-logs policy, strong AES-256 encryption, and EU-based servers to keep your traffic under familiar legal protections. Given the scale of sextortion reports in Italy, be especially cautious about who has access to personal images and videos, and treat any threat involving private material as a matter for immediate reporting to authorities rather than something to handle alone. Enable two-factor authentication everywhere it's offered, since Italy's breach notification numbers show exposure remains an active, ongoing risk.

VPNs Are Legal — But Providers Now Face Real Enforcement Pressure

Using a VPN in Italy is legal, and Italian law does not prohibit encryption tools — the EU's GDPR further reinforces the right to privacy. What's changed is the pressure on VPN providers themselves: under Italy's Piracy Shield law, VPN and open DNS services must comply with blocking orders within just 30 minutes of notification, with one provider, AirVPN, already announcing it will no longer accept Italian residents rather than comply. This targets the infrastructure providers, not individual users for simply having a VPN.

What to Look For in a UCN VPN for Italy

Choose a UCN VPN with a demonstrated willingness to resist overbroad blocking demands. Cloudflare was fined €14 million in December 2025 for refusing to register with Piracy Shield and has filed an appeal, arguing the system routinely blocks legitimate, unrelated websites — a University of Twente study confirmed the system has knocked out services like Google Drive for over 12 hours at a time. Look for WireGuard® encryption and an independently audited no-logs policy, and prioritize a provider that has taken a public stance on defending user access rather than one that hasn't been tested.

Why Italian Users Actually Use a VPN

Beyond the Piracy Shield situation, everyday Italian use is straightforward and low-risk. Using a VPN for legitimate purposes — protecting personal data, accessing region-locked content you're entitled to, or securing public Wi-Fi connections — remains firmly within Italian law. A UCN VPN is genuinely useful for banking security in Rome or Milan cafés, and for accessing streaming content or services unavailable to Italian IP addresses.

What "No-Logs" Actually Means

A no-logs policy means the VPN provider stores no record of your browsing activity, IP address, or connection times. Even the EU Commission has raised concerns that Italy's Piracy Shield may breach the Digital Services Act and risk undermining freedom of expression — a signal that this legal landscape is far from settled. An independently audited no-logs policy remains the strongest personal protection regardless of how the broader regulatory fight plays out.

Getting Started in Under a Minute

Download the UCN VPN app, sign in, and tap Connect — your traffic is encrypted immediately. Given the fast-moving nature of Piracy Shield enforcement in Italy, choosing a provider that's proven it will stand behind its users is worth prioritizing over convenience alone.

Italy's fight over Piracy Shield is reshaping how VPNs operate there in real time — a UCN VPN built to resist overreach is the safer long-term choice.