September 2nd, 2023: Elon Musk’s company, X, which was Twitter before, is now gathering more data on its users. The kind of data being taken includes things like biometric info. Biometric means unique body traits like fingerprints.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it’s for “automated recognition.”
Why is X doing this? The company has said it will use the data for machine learning and AI. This was added to the online privacy policy.
UPDATE: X confirms this policy on biometrics is tied to the upcoming rollout of optional ID verification for Premium subscribers.
— X News Daily (@xDaily) September 1, 2023
ID verification will ‘help X fight impersonation attempts and make the platform more secure’, the statement said. https://t.co/e1Ba8xbjQi pic.twitter.com/DU82eRsMio
But it’s not totally clear what for. They said it’s for “authentication and the operation of services.” They also plan to gather info on users’ education and jobs.
X will use this data to suggest job opportunities to users.
This change will start at the end of September.
Elon Musk also owns car company Tesla and space company SpaceX. In July, he talked about his new project, xAI. Its aim is to “understand reality.”
But just weeks before that, Musk and other tech leaders said AI growth should pause. They want to understand it better first.
Privacy is a big deal for people. Musk knows this. He posted on X saying, “Just public data, not DMs or anything private.”
So, X is collecting more data, but there are questions. What will the data be used for? And how will it affect user privacy?
