Irish Watchdog Probes X Over Use of EU Data to Train Its AI

On April 11, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced it would launch a probe into X’s use of posts by EU residents to train its Grok AI model. The DPC acts as the company’s lead regulator in the EU due to X’s operations in Ireland.

As the bloc’s lead regulator, the DPC is responsible for enforcing the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), often called the strictest data protection law in the world. Under the GDPR, the commission could impose fines of up to 4% of the company’s global revenue.

“This inquiry considers a range of issues concerning the use of a subset of this data which was controlled by [X] – namely personal data comprised in publicly accessible posts posted on the ‘X’ social media platform by EU/EEA users. The purpose of this inquiry is to determine whether this personal data was lawfully processed in order to train the Grok LLMs,” the commission said in a press release.

This probe comes after the DPC ended court proceedings against X last year, in which the company agreed to stop using the personal information of EU residents to train its AI systems. The commission took a closer look at how the use of Europeans’ data to train AI models (from several companies) fits into existing GDPR regulations.

The current investigation by the DPC aims to examine whether X has adhered to last year’s arrangement.

X has been the target of closer oversight by EU regulating bodies. In January, it faced two investigations over its handling of misinformation, as well as a separate probe into its recommendation algorithms and the alleged promotion of politically extremist content.

The move is sure to cause controversy, as both US President Donald Trump and X’s CEO Elon Musk have heavily criticized EU regulations targeting American tech companies. Bloc representatives have previously expressed concerns about deteriorating political relationships as a result.