The social media platform X on thursday, agreed to temporarily stop using personal data from European Union (EU) users to train its AI systems, pending a court ruling.
This decision came during a hearing in an Irish court, where Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) sought to restrict or suspend X's processing of user data for AI development.
The DPC, which oversees many major U.S. tech firms due to their EU operations being based in Ireland, initiated this action to protect user privacy.
X, owned by Elon Musk, allows users to opt out of having their public posts used by its AI chatbot, Grok, by unchecking a box in their privacy settings.
However, Judge Leonie Reynolds noted that X started processing data from EU users on May 7, while the opt-out option was only introduced on July 16, and was not immediately available to all users.
During the hearing, a lawyer representing X stated that the company would not use data collected from EU users between May 7 and August 1 for AI training until the court makes a decision on the DPC's order.
X's legal team is expected to submit their opposition to the suspension order by September 4.
In a post on X, the platform's Global Government Affairs account criticized the DPC's order, calling it "unwarranted, overboard, and unfairly targeting X."
To note, the DPC's concerns about data usage are not new to X.
In June, Meta Platforms delayed the launch of its Meta AI models in Europe after the DPC advised against it.
Similarly, Google's Alphabet agreed to delay and modify its Gemini AI chatbot earlier this year following discussions with the Irish regulator.
