Elon Musk's X Agrees to Halt EU Data Processing for Training Grok

Elon Musk has agreed to temporarily stop using Europeans' X data to train his Grok chatbot.

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) in Ireland, responsible for overseeing X's privacy compliance under GDPR, announced the development on Thursday. They welcomed X's decision to suspend processing personal data for training the AI tool 'Grok'.

This decision came after the DPC initiated court proceedings against X for processing data without consent. The regulator also plans to bring the matter to the attention of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).

In response to X's decision, DPC commissioner Des Hogan stated, 'My colleague and I welcome X's agreement to suspend processing while we investigate compliance with GDPR. Our priority is to protect X users' rights and freedoms across the EU and EEA'.

The DPC has yet to confirm whether unlawfully processed data will be deleted and how to address AI models trained on such data, leaving privacy watchdogs with important decisions to make.

OpenAI's ChatGPT faced similar scrutiny for processing Europeans' public data, leading to warnings from Italy's privacy regulator. The EDPB taskforce, which assessed the GDPR implications of ChatGPT, had not reached a definitive conclusion on processing legality and fairness.

The potential deletion of AI models trained on unlawfully processed data presents another challenge for privacy regulators to navigate.