Ireland opens probe into Grok amid X crackdown in Europe

Irish regulators have opened a “large-scale” investigation into Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok over AI-generated sexualized images.

A formal investigation into Grok will look into how the chatbot processes personal data and its potential to produce harmful sexualized images and video, including of children, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) said.

The DPC can impose fines on X of up to 4% of the company’s global revenue under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which could amount to over $100 million based on the latest estimates.

Irish regulators are taking charge of the investigation because the US company has its EU headquarters in Dublin.

X faced global backlash over a Grok feature that allowed users to undress real people without their consent. The platform’s parent company, xAI, announced last month that Grok would no longer generate sexualized nudes “in territories where it is illegal.”

Despite new curbs, Grok continued to generate sexualized images of people even when users explicitly warned that the subjects did not consent, according to the news agency Reuters.

The DPC notified X of its decision to commence the inquiry into Grok on February 16th, according to a statement dated February 17th.

“The DPC has been engaging with [X] since media reports first emerged a number of weeks ago concerning the alleged ability of X users to prompt the @Grok account on X to generate sexualized images of real people, including children,” Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said.

He said regulators had commenced “a large-scale inquiry which will examine [X’s] compliance with some of their fundamental obligations under the GDPR in relation to the matters at hand.”

X is yet to comment on a new probe.

Euro-troubles

The investigation in Ireland comes amid mounting scrutiny of X elsewhere in Europe, where policy-makers and regulators are increasingly wary of American technology companies and Europe’s overreliance on them.

In January, the European Commission launched its own probe into Grok over AI-generated nudes. Earlier in February, the UK’s privacy watchdog launched a formal investigation into Grok over the same issue, while another investigation was already ongoing.

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Meanwhile, French authorities raided X’s offices in Paris and summoned Musk and Linda Yaccarino, the platform’s former chief executive, for a “voluntary interview” on April 20th.

And just today, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said his government had ordered prosecutors to investigate X, as well as Meta and TikTok, for allegedly spreading AI-generated child sexual abuse material.

Both Musk and the Trump administration have been highly critical of European efforts to regulate US companies. The White House previously described fines imposed by the EU on American companies as a form of taxation and threatened to retaliate.

X was most recently fined €120 million ($142 million) by the European Commission in December for violating the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires online platforms to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content.

In response, X deactivated the European Commission’s ad account.

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