Elon Musk's X agrees to refrain from using some EU users' data to train its AI chatbot

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission is seeking a High Court order to restrict Twitter/X from using EU citizens' data under GDPR

Thu, 08 Aug, 2024 - 17:11

Social media platform X has agreed, for now, not to train its AI systems using the personal data collected from users in the EU before they had the option to withdraw their consent, the High Court heard yesterday.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) is the lead EU regulator for most of the top US internet firms as Ireland is the location of their EU operations.

The DPC this week sought an order to suspend or restrict X from processing the data of users for the purposes of developing, training, or refining its AI systems.

Elon Musk-owned X has said it allows all users to decide if their public posts can be used by the platform’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok. To do so, users have to untick a box in their privacy settings to opt out.

However, Judge Leonie Reynolds said it was clear that X began processing EU users’ data to train its AI systems on May 7 and only offered the option to opt out from July 16. The feature was also not initially rolled out to all users, she said.

A lawyer for X (formerly Twitter) said the data collected from EU users between May 7 and August 1 would not be used until proceedings on the DPC’s order are decided by the court.

Lawyers for X are due to file opposition papers against the suspension order by September 4, the court heard.

On a post on the social media platform on Wednesday, the X Global Government Affairs account said the order sought by the regulator was "unwarranted, overboard and singles out X without any justification."

The regulator's concerns over how X uses the data follows Meta Platforms' decision in June not to launch its Meta AI models in Europe for the time being after the DPC told it to delay its plan.

Alphabet's Google also agreed to delay and make changes to its Gemini AI chatbot earlier this year following consultations with the regulator.