X agrees to pause EU data use for AI amid legal dispute
X has committed not to use data collected from EU users between 7 May and 1 August until the court decides.
Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, has agreed to pause using data from European Union users to train its AI systems until further court decisions are made. The agreement comes after Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) sought to suspend X’s processing of user data for AI development, arguing that the platform had started using this data without user consent.
X, formerly known as Twitter, introduced an option for users to opt out of data usage for AI training. However, this was only available from 16 July, despite data processing beginning on 7 May. This delay led the DPC to take legal action, with a court hearing revealing that X would refrain from using data collected between 7 May and 1 August until the issue is resolved.
X’s legal team is expected to file opposition papers against the DPC’s suspension order by 4 September. The platform defended its actions, calling the regulator’s order unwarranted and unjustified. This case follows similar scrutiny faced by other tech giants like Meta and Google, which have also faced regulatory challenges in the EU over their AI systems.
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