Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) is taking the Twitter International Unlimited Company to the country’s High Court over its “Grok” artificial intelligence, local media have reported.
The DPC watchdog reportedly believes that the training of the AI runs in violation of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as publicly available user data — such as X social media posts — are being used to train the chatbot.
The DPC has reportedly been in contact with X about the matter and, while the regulator acknowledged that the tech firm has taken measures to mitigate the issue, it remained concerned that user data was not being treated in line with the law.
It is also concerned that such issues could be made more complex with the release of a new version of Grok, which is expected to enter service later in August.
Officials are reportedly set to request that the High Court issue orders banning the company from using X users’ data for the purposes of developing, training or refining any machine learning, or other AI systems operated by the company.
The DPC also reportedly intends to present the issue to the European Data Protection Board.
Upon receiving the request, Justice Leonie Reynolds of the Irish High Court granted the DPC permission to serve a short notice of the injunction proceedings on the X-owner.
The case is now expected to return to the court sometime later in the week starting August 5.
Headquartered in Dublin, Twitter International Unlimited Company is registered as the official data controller for X within the European Union. As a result, the enforcement of EU law regarding the company is often the responsibility of Irish regulators.
The Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament has demanded that the European Commission provide details of what it claimed was a “disgusting” plan to censor Elon Musk’s X. https://t.co/GiOQz6rsW5
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) July 31, 2024
