Ireland’s data regulator has officially opened an investigation into social media platform X regarding its use of personal data collected from European Union users for the training of its AI system, Grok. This inquiry reflects a growing concern about data privacy and compliance with EU regulations.
The Data Protection Commission (DPC), which serves as the lead EU regulator for X due to its operations based in Ireland, is responsible for enforcing stringent data protection laws under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The DPC has the authority to levy fines of up to 4% of a company’s global revenue for violations.
According to a statement from the DPC, the investigation will focus on how X processes personal data obtained from publicly accessible posts made by EU Economic Area users. This data is used for the purpose of training generative artificial intelligence models.
American political figures, including former U.S. President Donald Trump, have criticized the EU’s approach to regulating U.S. companies, characterizing penalties imposed as a form of taxation. Elon Musk, the owner of X and widely known as the world’s richest individual, has shared similar sentiments regarding EU regulations affecting online content.
The investigation follows a previous court case in which the DPC sought an order to prevent X from using EU user data to develop its AI systems. In a noteworthy agreement, X consented to halt the use of personal data to train its AI before users had the chance to withdraw consent. The DPC subsequently ended its legal actions after X committed to uphold these limits permanently.
Since the DPC gained sanctioning powers in 2018, it has issued fines to major companies, including Microsoft’s LinkedIn and Meta, amounting to nearly 3 billion euros. However, X, previously known as Twitter, has not faced further sanctions since it was fined 450,000 euros in 2020, marking the initial penalty imposed under the new data privacy system.
