X Hit By Complaints On Using Data By Austria Regarding AI Training

Austria limits X from processing user data (photo: dock. x)

JAKARTA - Austria's advocacy group, NOYB, on Monday 12 August, filed a complaint against social media platform X, owned by Elon Musk, on charges that the company trained artificial intelligence (AI) using users' personal data without their consent, which violates EU privacy laws.

The group led by privacy activist Max Schrems announced that it has filed a Public Data Protection Complaint (GDPR) to authorities in nine European Union countries to increase pressure on Irish data protection authorities (DPC).

Ireland's Data Protection Commission, the EU's main regulator for most major US internet companies due to their EU operating location in the country, has requested orders to stop or limit X from trying to process user data for the purpose of developing, training, or perfecting its AI system.

X has agreed not to train its current AI system using personal data collected from EU users before they have the option to withdraw their approval, according to a court hearing in Ireland last week.

However, NOYB stated that complaints against the DPC focused more on mitigation measures and the lack of cooperation by X, and did not question the legality of the data processing itself.

"We want to ensure that Twitter fully complies with EU law, which at least requires seeking user approval in this case," Schrems said in a statement, referring to X with his previous name, Twitter.

At a hearing last week, an Irish court found that X only gave its users the opportunity to refuse a few weeks after the start of data collection.

X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. The X Global Government Affairs account on Friday, August 9 stated that the company will continue to work with the DPC on AI issues.

In June, Facebook's parent company Meta announced that it would not launch its AI assistant in Europe for now after the Irish DPC asked them to postpone its plans. NOYB has also filed complaints in several countries against the use of personal data to train software in this case