Social media platform X has agreed not to train its AI chatbot, Grok, using personal data from European Union users.
Elon Musk told an Irish court yesterday (8 August) that X will not collect data without consent from platform users.
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The Irish court sought an order to suspend or restrict X from processing user data for the purposes of developing, training or refining its AI systems.
EU regulator, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), brought the case forward, due to the location of X’s EU operations in the country.
An agreement was reached after X said it allows users to decide for themselves if their data can be used by its AI chatbot Grok.
A tickbox can be found in user privacy and safety settings entitled ‘data sharing and personalisation’ which asks users for consent for Grok.
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By GlobalDataThe statement alongside the tickbox reads: “Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok to be used for training and fine-tuning. To continuously improve your experience, we may utilize your X posts as well as your user interactions, inputs and results with Grok for training and fine-tuning purposes.”
The notice also informs users that their interactions, inputs, and results may also be shared with service provider xAI.
Judge Leonie Reynolds argued however that X began processing EU user 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 said the data collected from EU users between May and August would not be used until proceedings on the DPC order are complete.
Opposition papers are due to be filed by legal counsel for X against the suspension order by 4 September.
Other tech companies under scrutiny from the Irish DPC include Meta, which decided not to launch its Meta AI in Europe after being told to delay its plan, and Google which delayed changes to its Gemini product after discussions with the regulator.
