European data privacy watchdog closes case against X over its Grok AI bot

Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) formally closed proceedings against X on Wednesday after the social media platform agreed to permanently stop processing personal data gleaned from European users to feed the company’s Grok artificial intelligence chatbot.

The decision follows a DPC appeal to Ireland’s High Court last month after which X initially agreed to abandon its Grok model training.

The commission’s decision to appeal to the High Court to rein in Grok represents the first time the DPC has used that power to stop troubling data practices. The High Court handles the most serious civil and criminal cases in the country.

The DPC pursued the matter quickly because it had “significant concerns” that X’s use of the data to train Grok threatens the “fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals” in Europe, according to a statement from the DPC.

X processed EU citizen data to train Grok from May 7 to August 1, the DPC said. The company initially pledged to stop using user posts for Grok on August 8.

The commission said its decision to go to court came after “extensive engagement between the DPC and X regarding its AI Model training.”

Grok, xAI's main feature, allows users to create pictures from text and post them on X. Only subscribers to X Premium have access to the feature. Recent uses of the technology include a fake image of former President Barack Obama snorting cocaine.

Ireland's DPC takes the lead in enforcing Europe’s tough data privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for major U.S. technology companies that have their European headquarters in Ireland.

The case is an example of how the DPC plans to aggressively pursue industry broadly as it uses personal data in AI models, the statement said. 

The DPC said it is asking the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) to begin in-depth conversations on the issue and “facilitate agreement, at EDPB level, on some of the core issues that arise in the context of processing for the purpose of developing and training an AI model, thereby bringing some much needed clarity into this complex area.”