X suspends harvest of EU users' personal data to train its AI

Social network X has suspended its much-criticised harvesting of European users' personal data to train its artificial intelligence program, Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) said Friday.

The DPC, which acts on behalf of the European Union, said in a statement that it "welcomes X's agreement to suspend its processing of the personal data contained in the public posts of X's EU/EEA users which it processed between 7 May 2024 and 1 August 2024, for the purpose of training its AI 'Grok'."

The DPC, which is working in collaboration with European regulators, has made an urgent High Court application for violation of EU rules on data protection (GDPR).


DPC chairperson Des Hogan said that investigators would "continue to examine the extent to which the processing complies with the GDPR.

"Today's developments will help us to continue protecting the rights and freedoms of X users across the EU and EEA," he added.

The social network said it "will continue to work with the DPC about Grok and other AI matters as we have been doing since last year."

Eight European countries have complained over X's data collection practices, which advocacy group NOYB (None of Your Business) said were "very likely" in breach of GDPR.

NOYB said that X should have made its practices more transparent to users and obtained their explicit consent before enabling data collection.