DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland’s data regulator said on Friday it had opened a survey of X’s social media platform X, which is about using personal data collected by EU users to train its AI system Grok.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) is X’s main EU regulator because of its EU business location in the country. It has the right to fine up to 4% of the company’s global revenues under the EU’s strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
“The processing of personal data posted by EU/EEA users in public posts posted on X social media platform to train the generation of artificial intelligence models,” DPC said in a statement.
U.S. President Donald Trump and other members of his administration have criticized the EU’s regulation of U.S. companies and used the EU’s fines on U.S. technology companies as a form of taxation.
X boss Elon Musk is the richest man in the world and Trump’s top adviser, and has also violated EU regulations, mainly Brussels’ direct imposition of online content.
The decision follows last year’s court case in which Irish regulators sought orders to limit X’s processing of data from EU users to develop their AI systems.
X agrees to stop training its AI system using personal data collected from EU users before withdrawing consent. The Irish regulator ended the court lawsuit a few weeks later, saying X had permanently agreed to the restrictions.
Strong Irish privacy regulators fined Microsoft’s LinkedIn, Tiktok and Meta since gaining sanctions powers in 2018.
X or Twitter has been called Twitter since the DPC fined €450,000 ($511,000) in 2020, the first fines issued by regulators under the new data privacy system.
(Written by Conor Humphries; Edited by Catarina Demony)
