Austrian advocacy group NOYB filed a complaint against social media platform X on Monday for violation of EU privacy law.
TakeAway Points:
- An advocacy organisation from Austria, NOYB, filed a complaint against social networking platform X, claiming that the Elon Musk-owned business has violated EU privacy rules by exploiting user personal data to train its artificial intelligence (AI) without the users’ consent.
- NOYB said the DPC complaint is mainly concerned with mitigation measures and a lack of cooperation by X and does not question the legality of the data processing itself.
- Meanwhile, an Irish court heard testimony on Thursday regarding the agreement made by social media platform X last Thursday to refrain from training its AI systems with personal data obtained from users of the European Union prior to their ability to withdraw consent.
X hit for EU privacy law violation
Austrian advocacy group NOYB filed a complaint against social media platform X accusing the Elon Musk-owned company of training its artificial intelligence (AI) with users’ personal data without their consent, in violation of EU privacy law.
The group, led by privacy activist Max Schrems, announced that it had filed General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) complaints with authorities in nine European Union authorities to ramp up pressure on the Irish data protection authority, DPC.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the lead EU regulator for most of the top U.S. internet firms due to the location of their EU operations in the country, has sought an order to suspend or restrict X from processing the data of users for the purposes of developing, training, or refining its AI systems.
NOYB said the DPC complaint is mainly concerned with mitigation measures and a lack of cooperation by X and does not question the legality of the data processing itself.
“We want to ensure that Twitter fully complies with EU law, which, at a bare minimum, requires us to ask users for consent in this case,” said Schrems in a statement, referring to X by its previous name.
At the hearing last week, an Irish court found that X had only given its users the opportunity to object several weeks after the start of data collection.
The X Global Government Affairs account on Friday said the company would continue to work with the DPC about AI issues.
In June, Facebook parent company Meta announced that it would not be launching its AI assistant in Europe for the time being after the Irish DPC told it to delay its plan.
NOYB had lodged complaints in several countries against the use of personal data for training the software in this case too.
X consents to refrain from using EU user data for AI chatbot training
Meanwhile, social media platform X agreed on Thursday last week not to train its AI systems for now using the personal data collected from European Union users before they had the option to withdraw their consent, an Irish court heard on Thursday.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the lead EU regulator for most of the top U.S. internet firms due to the location of their EU operations in the country, this week sought an order to suspend or restrict X from processing the data of users for the purposes of developing, training, or refining its AI systems.
Elon Musk-owned X has said it allows all users to decide if their public posts can be used by the platform’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok. To do so, users have to uncheck a box in their privacy settings to opt out.
However, Judge Leonie Reynolds said it was clear that X began processing EU users’ data to train its AI systems on May 7 and only offered the option to opt out on July 16. The feature was also not initially rolled out to all users, she said.
A lawyer for the platform formerly known as Twitter said the data collected from EU users between May 7 and August 1 would not be used until proceedings on the Irish Data Protection Commission’s (DPC) order are decided by the court.
Lawyers for X are due to file opposition papers against the suspension order by September 4, the court heard.
In a post on the social media platform on Wednesday, the X Global Government Affairs account said the order sought by the regulator was “unwarranted, overboard, and singles out X without any justification.”
The regulator’s concerns over how X uses the data follow Meta Platforms’ decision in June not to launch its Meta AI models in Europe for the time being after the Irish DPC told it to delay its plan.
Alphabet’s Google also agreed to delay and make changes to its Gemini AI chatbot earlier this year, following consultations with the Irish regulator.
