xAI faces privacy suit by UK lawmaker | The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
xAI faces privacy suit by UK lawmaker | The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2026/jun/05/xai-faces-privacy-suit-by-uk-lawmaker/
Publish Date: 2026-06-05 02:42:00
Source Domain: www.arkansasonline.com
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LONDON — A British lawmaker said Thursday she is suing Elon Musk’s company xAI for invasion of privacy, claiming that fake images of her were created using the Grok chatbot.
Jess Asato, a legislator with the governing Labour Party, says someone used Grok to create fake images of her in a bikini without her consent in January after she criticized the spread of deepfake pornography online.
She filed a claim Wednesday at the High Court in London, citing misuse of private information under the Data Protection Act.
She is seeking damages and says she wants to create a precedent that companies can be held liable for the design of their AI systems.
“Nobody would be able to walk up to me in the street and strip me and put me in a bikini, and I don’t see why anybody should be able to do that to me online, because the feeling, while it is not quite the same, is very similar,” she said. “It is like somebody has digitally stripped me without my consent.”
Asato said she hopes others will join the claim.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he supports Asato’s legal action “100%.”
“Jess Asato is absolutely right in the action that she is taking,” Starmer told reporters. “Disgusting images were created in her particular case by Grok.”
Following an international outcry against deepfake pornography, Musk’s company said in January it would no longer allow Grok users to edit images of real people to remove their clothing.
A law passed last year in the U.K. made it illegal to create or request a non-consensual deepfake image of an adult. But Asato says xAI should be held accountable for harm that has already been done.
“Once the damage is done, the damage is done,” she said. “If you think about any other products, like a car, for example, that might have been manufactured…
