X will pause training its artificial intelligence chatbot Grok with some European users’ posts, according to Europe’s chief privacy watchdog.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) today said the controversial social media platform had agreed to stop using millions of Europeans’ public posts it had previously gathered from between May 7 and Aug. 1 to train its chatbot for now. X did not immediately reply to POLITICO’s request to confirm the deal.
X came under fire in Europe after it started collecting and using its users’ data, including their posts, to train Grok without notifying them or asking for their consent, prompting scrutiny from the DPC, its lead European regulator.
« Today’s developments will help us to continue protecting the rights and freedoms of X users across the EU and [the European Economic Area], » Data Protection Commissioner Des Hogan said in a comment.
The deal comes after an unprecedented legal escalation by the Irish privacy authority.
The DPC on Tuesday began a first-of-its-kind urgent legal action against X in the Irish High Court, asking the court to order the social media network to suspend, restrict or prohibit its processing of personal data.
Hogan said the DPC and other European data agencies would continue examining whether X’s processing of European users’ data for its chatbot respected the GDPR. The legal case is still ongoing.
Several other major tech firms have faced regulatory setbacks in Europe over privacy issues raised by their AI plans. Europeans have some of the world’s strongest privacy rights because of a landmark 2018 law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Meta in June announced it was pausing its plan to process Europeans’ posts and images on Facebook and Instagram to train its AI tools after a spate of GDPR complaints. Consumer organizations like Euroconsumers in June filed a complaint targeting LinkedIn for using data for its AI models.
