Musk’s Grok accused of violating Canadian privacy laws over deepfakes

Canada’s privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne announced on Thursday that xAI’s artificial intelligence platform Grok violated the country’s federal private sector privacy law. An investigation launched in January revealed that the Grok image generator was rolled out without adequate safeguards, allowing users to create and share sexualized deepfake images without consent.

While the commissioner lacks the authority to impose fines or order policy changes, xAI has committed to regularly monitoring for sexualized deepfakes rather than only responding to incidents. The report comes as Canada considers a new digital safety bill that would ban social media use for children under 16, with exceptions for companies meeting safety standards. The legislation would also create a digital regulator to establish safety standards for AI chatbots.

Globally, xAI faces increasing scrutiny. Earlier this month, British lawmaker Jess Asato sued xAI over deepfake sexualized images of her. In January, UK media regulator Ofcom launched an investigation into whether the platform adequately prevents creation of such content. The European Commission also condemned explicit content on X, leading to a probe.

Spain launched a probe into Grok in February, and a Dutch court ordered xAI to stop allowing nude image creation in the country in March. In the US, three teenage girls filed a class action lawsuit in March alleging the platform allowed child sexual abuse images. In January, the US Senate passed a bill allowing victims of deepfake explicit images to sue for at least $150,000. Meanwhile, Indonesia and Malaysia fully blocked Grok in January over sexually explicit AI images.