UK Probes Grok Deepfake Harms as France Raids X Offices Over Data Concerns

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Regulators in both the UK and France have launched parallel investigations into parts of Elon Musk’s technology empire, Grok and X, underlining the potential stakes AI tools and online platforms face with their compliance obligations in a rapidly shifting technological landscape.

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced on February 3 that it is opening an investigation into Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, over its “potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content,” and that “the reported creation and circulation of such content raises serious concerns under UK data protection law and presents a risk of significant potential harm to the public.” 

The ICO’s executive director for regulatory risk and innovation, William Malcolm, said:

The reports about Grok raise deeply troubling questions about how people’s personal data has been used to generate intimate or sexualised images without their knowledge or consent, and whether the necessary safeguards were put in place.

The European Commission launched a related investigation in late January.

The ICO investigation follows widespread criticism after Grok was reportedly misused to create sexual deepfake images of real women and children. While Ofcom has been investigating the distribution of such content on X, the UK’s broadcasting regulator said it lacks sufficient powers to examine the AI chatbot itself, with the ICO then launching its own investigation in conjunction with Ofcom.

The Grok inquiry comes as pressure mounts on X in France. On February 3, the platform’s Paris offices were raided by a cyber-crime unit investigating suspected unlawful data extraction and potential complicity in the possession and distribution of illegal images. French authorities have also summoned Musk and former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino to hearings in April.

X has denied any wrongdoing, calling the raid an “abusive act of law enforcement theater … [that] endangers free speech."