The Irish privacy watchdog will check whether Google’s development of its AI model is compliant with the EU data protection regulation.
The Irish Data Protection Commission today (12 September) said it has started a cross-border statutory inquiry into Google to verify whether the company’s AI practices are compliant with the EU’s data protection rules.
The watchdog wants to know whether the tech giant has undertaken an assessment under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) before processing the personal data of EU and EEA users for the development of its foundational AI Model, Pathways Language Model 2, the statement said.
“A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA), where required, is of crucial importance in ensuring that the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals are adequately considered and protected when processing of personal data is likely to result in a high risk,” the Irish authority added,
The inquiry is part of the agency’s “wider efforts” to regulate the processing of personal data of EU users and citizens in the development of AI models.
Last month, X’s AI model Grok came under scrutiny. The social media company changed its privacy settings in July so EU users had to opt out of having xAI use their public posts to train Grok, Elon Musk’s new AI model.
The Irish authority filed an emergency request to the Irish High Court about the changes because they believed privacy rights were being violated.
Court proceedings were ended after the company agreed to permanently suspend personal data collection for EU users to train its artificial intelligence.
Similarly, Meta stopped the roll-out of its AI model in Europe in July because of the “unpredictable nature of the European regulatory environment”, the company said.
The Irish privacy watchdog engaged with Meta on the matter after complaints were filed by Austrian privacy group NOYB over concerns about the use of consumers’ personal data.
