Irish regulator investigates X over use of EU personal data to train Grok AI

Reuters

Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 6:50 AM 2 min read

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's information regulator connected Friday said it had opened an probe into societal media level X implicit the usage of idiosyncratic information collected from European Union users to bid its AI strategy Grok.

Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) is the pb EU regulator for X owed to the determination of its EU operations successful the country. It has the powerfulness to enforce fines of up to 4% of a company's planetary gross nether the EU's strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The enquiry volition look astatine "the processing of idiosyncratic information comprised successful publicly-accessible posts posted connected the X societal media level by EU/EEA users, for the purposes of grooming generative artificial quality models," the DPC said successful a statement.

U.S. President Donald Trump and different members of his medication person criticised EU regularisation of U.S. companies and described fines imposed connected U.S. tech companies by the EU arsenic a signifier of taxation.

X proprietor Elon Musk, the world's richest antheral and a apical advisor to Trump, has besides railed against EU regulations, chiefly those imposed straight by Brussels connected online content.

The determination follows a tribunal lawsuit past twelvemonth successful which the Irish regulator sought an bid to restrict X from processing the information of EU users for the purposes of processing its AI systems.

X agreed to halt grooming its AI systems utilizing idiosyncratic information collected from EU users earlier they had the enactment to retreat their consent. The Irish regulator ended its tribunal proceedings weeks later, saying X had agreed the limits connected a imperishable basis.

The almighty Irish privateness regulator has fined the likes of Microsoft's LinkedIn, TikTok and Meta since it was fixed sanctioning powers successful 2018. Its fines to day of Meta full astir 3 cardinal euros.

X, oregon Twitter arsenic it was past called, has not faced sanctions since the DPC fined it 450,000 euros ($511,000) successful 2020, the archetypal punishment the regulator handed retired nether the caller information privateness system.

($1 = 0.8808 euros)

(Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Catarina Demony)