Background
The lead privacy watchdog for X (formerly Twitter) in the European Union has reached a conclusion in court proceedings against the social media platform regarding the processing of user data for AI model training without people’s consent. The decision comes after X agreed to permanently adhere to an undertaking, effectively ending the need for further litigation.
The Undertaking
X undertook that personal data comprised in EU/EEA publicly accessible posts made and/or posted on the ‘X’ social media platform by EU/EEA users and/or is contained or comprised in metadata related to such posts and which is contained in datasets which were used for the purposes of developing, training and/or refining the enhanced search service or tool of the Platform under the name ‘Grok’ between May 7, 2024 and August 1, 2024, shall be deleted and not processed (within the meaning of Article 4 (2) of the GDPR) for the aforementioned purposes of developing, training and/or refining Grok.
The Decision
The decision marks a significant step forward in the regulation of AI model training data in the EU. By agreeing to adhere to the undertaking, X has avoided further litigation and ensured compliance with EU data protection regulations.
Related Developments
Regulators have been actively addressing concerns surrounding AI model training data, including a request for EDPB guidance on how to apply the GDPR around OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a rival AI chatbot to X’s Grok. An earlier preliminary report yielded crux legal issues such as the lawfulness and fairness of processing undecided.
Quotes
"We hope that the resulting opinion will enable proactive, effective and consistent Europe-wide regulation of this area more broadly." – DPC commissioner Dale Sunderland
"The DPC hopes that the resulting opinion will enable proactive, effective and consistent Europe-wide regulation of this area more broadly. It will also support the handling of a number of complaints that have been lodged with/transmitted to the DPC in relation to a range of different data controllers, for purposes connected with the training and development of various AI models." – DPC commissioner Dale Sunderland
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