Elon Musk’s social media platform X is the subject of a series of privacy complaints claiming that the platform tapped the data of users in the European Union for training AI models without consent.
Late last month, a social media user reported a setting indicating that X had quietly begun processing the data of regional users to train its Grok AI chatbot.
The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), requires all uses of personal data to have a valid legal basis. The nine complaints against X, which have been filed with data protection authorities in Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain, accuse it of processing Europeans’ posts to train AI without obtaining their consent.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), the watchdog that leads on oversight of X’s compliance, has already taken some action over X’s processing for AI model training, instigating legal action in the Irish High Court seeking an injunction to force X to stop using the data.
The complaints argue X does not have a valid basis for using the data of some 60 million people in the EU to train AIs without obtaining their consent.
In June, Meta paused a similar plan to process user data for training AIs after NOYB backed some GDPR complaints and regulators stepped in.
According to the DPC, X was processing Europeans’ data for AI model training between May 7 and August 1.
