X hit by complaint accusing company of using Austrian data for AI training
The Austrian advocacy group NOYB filed a complaint against the social media platform X on Monday. The company, owned by Elon Musk, is accused of training its artificial intelligence (AI) with users’ personal data without their consent. This is a violation of EU privacy law.
The group led by privacy activist Max Schrems announced that complaints about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) have been filed with authorities in nine EU countries in a bid to increase pressure on the Irish DPC.
The Irish Data Protection Commission, the main EU regulator for most major US internet companies due to the location of their EU operations in the country, has sought an order suspending or restricting X from processing user data for the development, training or refinement of its AI systems.
X has agreed not to train its AI systems with EU users’ personal data for the time being, as long as X is not given the opportunity to withdraw their consent, an Irish court ruled last week.
However, according to NOYB, the DPC’s complaint mainly concerns the measures to limit the abuse and the lack of cooperation from X. The legality of the data processing itself is not questioned, according to NOYB.
“We want to ensure that Twitter fully complies with EU law, which – at a minimum – requires users to be asked for consent in this case,” Schrems said in a statement, referring to X by its old name.
At last week’s hearing, an Irish court ruled that X had not given its users the opportunity to object until several weeks after the data collection began.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. The X Global Government Affairs account on Friday said the company would continue to work with the DPC on AI issues.
In June, Facebook parent company Meta announced it would not launch its AI assistant in Europe for the time being, after the Irish DPC said the plan would have to be postponed.
In this case too, NOYB has filed complaints in several countries against the use of personal data for training the software.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
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