X Faces Investigation For Using Europeans’ Data To Train AI

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has launched an official investigation into Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, over how it used Europeans’ personal data to train its artificial intelligence tool, Grok.

The inquiry focuses on whether personal information from publicly visible posts by EU users on X was processed legally and transparently for the purposes of training the AI model, in accordance with the European Union’s data privacy rules, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In a statement, the DPC said it will examine “the processing of personal data comprised in publicly-accessible posts posted on the X social media platform by EU/EEA users, for the purposes of training generative artificial intelligence models,” as first reported by Reuters.

X has already faced multiple investigations across Europe. The DPC sued X last year because it wanted EU citizens to have the right to opt out of data use for AI training. X later agreed to stop such practices permanently, and the case was dropped.

Grok, developed by Musk’s AI startup xAI, powers features like the chatbot integrated into the X platform. he chatbot operating on the X platform runs on Grok technology which draws its training data from extensive language models (LLMs) that analyze vast amounts of text information including social media content and blog posts.

The DPC has been the main regulator for X in the EU since its European headquarters is located in Dublin. The Independent says that the regulator has the authority to fine companies up to €20 million or 4% of global revenue for serious violations. Reuters reports that in the past, it has fined big names like Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn, with total fines against Meta alone reaching nearly €3 billion.

X has not been fined by the DPC since 2020, when it paid €450,000 under GDPR rules, as noted by The Independent.

Neither X nor Elon Musk has responded to the latest investigation. Musk, a close adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, has frequently criticized the EU’s tech regulations, describing them as burdensome and unfair, as noted by Reuters.