X has made some adjustments to its privacy policy in order to expand on how it can access and utilize user data, including new provisos on biometric info, employment history, using data to train its AI models, and more.
The changes were announced to users via a pop-up in the app, with a basic message that signified an update to the document. By acknowledging this prompt, X users are essentially opting into these new terms, so here’s what exactly you’ve now given the app permission to use.
First off, on biometric data, X has added this qualifier in its usage terms:
“Biometric Information. Based on your consent, we may collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes.”
Why does X want your biometric information?
Well, X is working on adding Passkey access, which would enable you to use thumbprint and Face ID to sign-in, though that’s not directly linked to the app itself.
The addition could be part of X’s push to add in more ID verification elements, as part of its broader strategy to combat bots and scammers. It’s not entirely clear what X’s plans are on this front as yet, but X may or may not be looking to use your biometric info for security purposes in future.
In terms of job info, X has added this update:
“Job Applications / Recommendations. We may collect and use your personal information (such as your employment history, educational history, employment preferences, skills and abilities, job search activity and engagement, and so on) to recommend potential jobs for you, to share with potential employers when you apply for a job, to enable employers to find potential candidates, and to show you more relevant advertising.”
This is linked to X’s addition of job listings on company profiles, which will soon also incorporate job recommendations for users as well, based on your usage history, and evidently, any employment info you share as well.
The data collected for this element will likely be related to how you engage with job listings and alerts in the app, though the wording here also hints at X potentially providing ways for users to include more employment info within their profile, which would then assist in relevant job matching.
There’s also this updated note in the “How do you use my information” section of X’s Privacy Policy:
“We use the information we collect to provide and operate X products and services. We also use the information we collect to improve and personalize our products and services so that you have a better experience on X, including by showing you more relevant content and ads, suggesting people and topics to follow, enabling and helping you discover affiliates, third-party apps, and services. 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.”
That last note is the key update here, that X may use the information it collects to train its AI models.
X does specify that such information would only be used for the purposes outlined in the policy. But that does quite cover a lot, and with Elon and Co. developing their “anti-woke” TruthGPT model, via xAI, it’ll be interesting to see how it looks to feed user info into its evolving systems.
These are some interesting tweaks, which could become increasingly relevant over time, as X looks to evolve into a much more broad-reaching app. Eventually, Elon wants X to touch on every aspect of how we interact, and as it expands, it’ll also look to use more audience data to train its systems, which will see more updates to its Privacy Policy.
The specific uses of each of these data points remains to be seen, but it’s worth noting the latest shifts.
You can read X’s Privacy Policy here.