It was a practice that was widely criticized. The social network X (formerly Twitter) has suspended its use of the personal data of its European users to train its artificial intelligence program, according to a statement from the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC).
The DPC, which acts on behalf of the European Union, “welcomed the agreement reached with X so that it suspends its use of the personal data of (its) European users” to “train its artificial intelligence Grok”, the organization said on Thursday.
A violation of EU rules, according to the DPC
Elon Musk’s social network used the personal data of its European users between May 7 and August 1, according to the DPC, which has taken the Irish court to court for violation of EU data protection rules (GDPR). The DPC, which is working in collaboration with European regulators, “continues to examine the extent to which the processing of this data complies with the GDPR,” said Des Hogan, its chairman, quoted in the press release.
“We will continue to work with the DPC on Grok and other topics related to artificial intelligence, as we have been doing since last year,” social network X said in a publication this Friday.
We are pleased that people using X in the EU can continue to use Grok and control how their data is used with a simple privacy setting. We will continue to work with the DPC about Grok and other AI matters as we have been doing since last year. https://t.co/BnYOvcekO0
— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) August 8, 2024
The platform is the target of complaints in eight European countries for its “illegal” use of its users’ personal data in an artificial intelligence program, according to a press release from the Noyb association.
X “never proactively informed its users that their personal data was being used to train AI,” wrote the Viennese NGO this week, a bête noire of the tech giants that already forced Meta to back down on the same subject in June. “It seems that most people discovered the new default setting thanks to a user message on July 26,” the organization complained, asking the European regulator for an “emergency procedure.”
