New policy alert: X will collect public data for A.I. model training

Effective from September 29, X’s latest privacy policy will allow the platform to collect user information such as biometric data and employment history, while publicly available and collected information may be used for the company’s machine learning and A.I. model training.

According to X, its new privacy policy hints at six aspects as follows:

• X is a public platform.
• X collects some data about users.
• Affiliate services may have their own policies.
• X aims to use users’ data to improve the platform.
• Users can control their experience.
• If users have questions about how X uses data, they can just ask.

Two aspects of the information X will start collecting are biometric information and that related to job applications.

X has not yet provided a definition of biometric information in the policy. According to CBS MoneyWatch’s interview with the company, this information collection is targeting paid X Premium users who are required to submit their Government I.D. and a selfie for identity verification.

However, users are allowed to opt out of giving consent for their biometric information to be collected.

On the other hand, X will start collecting users’ job-related information, such as employment history, education history, employment preferences, and skills and abilities.

The information collected will be used for the company to recommend potential jobs, share with potential employers, enable employers to find potential candidates and provide relevant advertising.

This came after X’s launch of its new XHiring page, where verified organizations can feature job vacancies.

“We may use the information we collect and publicly available information to help train our machine learning or artificial intelligence models for the purposes outlined in this policy,” X wrote in section 2.1 of its new privacy policy. Writing on X, owner Elon Musk stressed that the information being used for training is "just public data, not DMs or anything private.”

Although this change has only been officially added to X’s privacy policy, the idea is nothing new. At the launch of generative A.I. tool xAI in July, Musk announced that information such as public tweets will be used for the company’s A.I. model training.

Read also: “Elon Musk embarks on new venture with ‘xAI’”