Interview: Lucie Audibert, solicitor in MP Jess Asato’s Grok case

Asato’s case

Without artificial intelligence (AI) specific regulation, Asato is pleading on two main grounds – breach of data protection law and misuse of private information, which is akin to negligence, specifically relating to invasion of privacy. 

Audibert said: “The legal arguments are likely to revolve around whether a deepfake image or video is an image of the victim, in which she has an expectation of privacy. We say that when an image is made to look exactly like you and whose very purpose is to degrade you or cause you harm, that is a misuse of your private information.” 

The case will establish the amount of control xAI has over the design, training and deployment of Grok. According to AWO, under the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018, the case will determine what obligations xAI have breached as a controller of the data involved in creating the deepfakes, and whether it has processed personal data in a lawful, fair and transparent way.

“Our client and her legal team have very limited information as to how Grok and how AI tools generally work,” said Audibert. “They [AI tools] are made by private companies who do not disclose anything publicly about how their algorithms work.”

She hopes the case puts pressure on companies like xAI, and leads to better public understanding of how tools such as Grok are designed and where the responsibility of its design decisions lies.

Developing legislation to protect victims

The Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA) made it a criminal offence to share or threaten to share intimate images including deepfakes, and social media platforms must prevent the content from appearing to users and requires platforms to proactively remove this content. Under the OSA, Ofcom can penalise platforms with fines of up to 10% of its global turnover.

Investigations into X and Grok’s content safety and systemic-risk obligations were launched in January 2026 by Ofcom and the European Commission under the OSA and Digital Services Act respectively, while the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) launched a separate investigation into whether the company has complied with data protection laws.

“The OSA does not provide any private rights of redress to people who have been affected by breaches [of the act],” said Audibert.

The government is currently using multiple legal frameworks to push back against the proliferation of sexual deepfakes.

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 criminalised the supply of AI tools specifically designed to create fake sexualised images – this includes providers and distributors of AI software. Meanwhile, individual offenders are targeted under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, where the creation or requested creation of explicit deepfake imagery of adults, was made a criminal offence in February 2026.

The offence under the Data Act led to a first landmark conviction this June – the perpetrator was discovered to be “viewing explicit material involving people appearing underage”, due to a monitoring software installed on his mobile due to a previous conviction. A further investigation found that he had been uploading images of women and a child onto an AI platform to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.

Support for victims of digital abuse

As a result of the widespread digital abuse on Grok, AWO has set up a takedown service for people who have had their images manipulated online.

In statements made after Grok’s image-generating feature restriction in January, technology secretary Liz Kendall urged that “platforms must prevent such content from appearing online and act swiftly to remove it if it does”, while X reassured users that “we take action to remove high-priority violative content”.

But Audibert said that a “substantial number” of inquiries have come through since the service was set up this June, after the legal claim against the xAI was filed, as victims reported finding difficulty having their non-consensual deepfakes removed.

“Despite reporting some of the content to X directly, a lot of it was either never taken down or took ages,” said Audibert. “We have seen that by getting lawyers involved, the takedown process is much more effective. xAI don’t seem to be very responsive to reports of content. It often takes a few rounds of correspondence to get everything fully removed.”

Loose guardrails for Grok

Launched by Elon Musk in 2023, xAI announced that Grok “is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use it if you hate humor!”, adding: “It will also answer spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems.”

Musk requested his staff to loosen safety restrictions on Grok in 2025, as he was “unhappy about over-censoring”, according to CNN, and three xAI safety team members soon left the company.

Since the beginning of 2026, xAI has faced a litany of lawsuits in the US, including one filed by the mother of one of Elon Musk’s children, Ashley St. Clair, in a case similar to Asato’s; and a wrongful termination lawsuit by former xAI engineer Devin Kim, who claims he was fired before presenting his findings on Grok’s safety risks.

Kim, who left xAI in September 2025 and now heads a think tank focused on AI safety, claims that he “repeatedly complained that xAI’s failure to prioritize AI safety, particularly with respect to Grok, virtually guaranteed that the Company would commit unlawful acts, from fomenting discrimination to proliferating weapons of mass destruction”, in his lawsuit.

The city of Baltimore also sued xAI over the production of these images, accusing the company of consumer protection violations, with ongoing inquiries into xAI’s safety guardrails by the California Attorney General.

Social media platforms such as X and Meta have been increasingly criticised for poor digital safety. Companies like Meta have long been aware of its product’s negative impacts on young people. Court cases over the years showed the extent of Meta’s awareness through internal studies and memos between its senior leadership.

Audibert hopes that the case similarly places pressure on xAI and brings transparency to the decisions that are made in Grok’s creation. “That’s in the hands of the tech companies to realise what their obligations are and the harm that their tools can cause,” she said.

“We would hope that it does pressure them to be really attentive to what their tools do and to the rights of the people who use it and who are victims of any harm they cause.”