Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has found that X and xAI violated Canadian privacy law over the Grok AI image tool being used to generate non-consensual sexualized deepfakes.
In a report released today, Commissioner Philippe Dufresne said the Grok image-generation tool was launched without proper safeguards or any real consideration of the privacy harms it could cause. That gap allowed users around the world to create and share deepfakes targeting women and children. The investigation was launched back in January after reports surfaced that Grok was being used to generate millions of sexualized deepfakes.
During the investigation, X and xAI did introduce some new measures to reduce misuse and added proactive sweeps to detect and remove harmful content. The Commissioner acknowledged those steps but is pushing for more, including quarterly progress reports and independent third-party audits until the deepfake issue is fully resolved.
“The creation of non-consensual, sexualized deepfakes, often targeting women and children, can have devastating consequences for victims,” said Dufresne. “Organizations have a responsibility and legal obligation to protect Canadians’ fundamental right to privacy.”
The Commissioner also used the report to push for stronger privacy legislation, noting that under current law he has no power to issue binding orders or financial penalties against companies that don’t comply. He’s been advocating for modernized privacy laws that would include both, and pointed to the federal government’s newly tabled Bill C-34 as a step in the right direction, which aims to lock down social media for kids under age 16. That social media legislation was announced yesterday and today’s privacy commissioner report comes one day later.
It’s not just xAI and X that the Privacy Commissioner has target lately. The OPC and its provincial counterparts concluded in May that OpenAI breached Canadian privacy laws by scraping personal information without consent and generating inaccurate outputs during the initial deployment of ChatGPT, though the federal regulator considers the matter conditionally resolved following recent compliance commitments from the company.
In March of 2025, xAI acquired X. Then in February of this year, SpaceX acquire xAI in a $250 billion all-stock transaction. SpaceX is set to go public tomorrow with a massive IPO, said to result in a company valuation of $1.75 trillion or more.
Want to see more of our stories on Google?
P.S. Want to keep this site truly independent? Support us by buying us a beer, treating us to a coffee, or shopping through Amazon here. Links in this post are affiliate links, so we earn a tiny commission at no charge to you. Thanks for supporting independent Canadian media!
