Irish authorities have launched an investigation into how Elon Musk’s popular group of large language models known by the name Grok have been trained using personal data from European Union citizens.
The green nation’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced its probe into the activity of the xAI models in a bulletin posted on its website Friday.
“This inquiry considers a range of issues concerning the use of a subset of this data which was controlled by X Internet Unlimited Company,” the statement read, “namely personal data comprised in publicly accessible posts posted on the ‘X’ social media platform by EU/European Economic Area users.”
The newly announced investigation follows X agreeing to stop using EU user data for LLM training last summer following a court battle with the DPC in Ireland. Now, the authority’s statement indicates that xAI may not have followed through its obligations and is suspected of not adhering to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) framework.
Musk and X representatives have not issued any statements addressing the matter.
The data regulator could potentially slap the DOGE creator and X stakeholders with a fine equal to 4 per cent of their company’s international revenue. Tech influences like Oracle Corp (NYSE: ORCL) co-founder Larry Ellison and Twitter pioneer Jack Dorsey are known to have an interest in X, along with certain venture capital firms.
It would not be the first time that the DPC has penalized a major tech company and collected a vast sum of cash.
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Irish privacy watchdog fined Meta and LinkedIn over €650M in 2024
The DPC collected big bucks from these social media companies last year for GDPR breaches, including improper password storage.
Over half of the fines dealt out for violating the EU’s data protection regulations last year were issued by the Irish commission.
Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) (FRA: MSF) has owned LinkedIn since 2016 after acquiring it for US$26.2 billion. Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) (FRA: FB2A) is responsible for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The Irish commission has dealt out over €2.5 billion in fines to Meta since 2021 while Microsoft has received charges exceeding €310 million for negligence to date.
Both companies have their European headquarters set up in Dublin, Ireland.
rowan@mugglehead.com
