Elon Musk’s X raises data privacy concerns in Europe

Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X is facing complaints that it “unlawfully” feeds users’ personal data into its artificial intelligence (AI) technology without their consent.

The Vienna-based European Centre for Digital Rights, also known as None of Your Business, filed the complaint against the social media platform on Monday. AFP report.

The complaints follow legal action brought by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) against X earlier this month over its data collection practices used to train its artificial intelligence.

According to Noyb, X recently began “irreversibly” feeding the personal data of more than 60 million European users into its Grok AI technology “without ever informing them or asking for their consent.”

Noyb harshly criticized X for “never proactively informing” users that their data was being used for AI training, and said many people appear to have “discovered the new default settings through a viral post on July 26th.”

Last week, the DPC, representing the European Union, said X Labs had agreed to suspend controversial processing of users’ personal data for its artificial intelligence technology.

However, Noyb founder Max Schrems criticised the DPC for not addressing the legality of actual data processing and for taking action “only at the edges, not at the heart of the issue”.

Neub also sounded a warning about the fate of already processed EU data.

Noyb has called for a “full investigation” and has filed cases in Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.

The group has requested “urgent procedure” against X to allow data protection authorities in eight European countries to take action.

“We want to make sure Twitter (now X) fully complies with EU law, which at a minimum requires consent,” Schrems said, referring to the EU’s landmark General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which aims to make it easier for people to control how companies use their personal information.

The group recently launched similar legal action against Meta, forcing it to halt its AI initiatives, and has filed multiple lawsuits against tech giants, often triggering action from regulators.