Starlink allows third-party collaborators to use personal information globally for training AI models and removes mentions of not selling user data
Starlink ▪ Privacy Policy ▪ January 16, 2026
On January 16, 2026, Starlink introduced several changes regarding the use of personal data.
A previous memo emphasized that this policy shifted from the website to the company’s telecommunication services. The changes described by the memo also mentioned that de-identified data are now ‘from and about’ users.
Personal information is now used “to train our machine learning or artificial intelligence models” for various purposes. They are listed in the same document, which includes “to comply in good faith with applicable laws, legal processes, and lawful government requests” and “to use data analytics to debug, optimize, and improve our products and services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences”.
“Third-party collaborators” have been added along with affiliates and service providers. This opens up the ability to share data horizontally with partners, both inside and outside the parent company. Such third-party collaborators are not defined in the document.
Starlink is a service provided by SpaceX, a company owned by Elon Musk. He is the CEO, CTO, and chairman of the company. He is also the founder and CEO of xAI, a company focused on generative artificial intelligence with the infamous Grok. This software has recently gained attention for enabling the creation of CSAM material. xAI is also the parent company of X, formerly known as Twitter. The website was a prominent and popular microblogging platform. Several governments and companies still use it to host their official communications.
Additionally, users now have to opt out of “the use of your data for artificial intelligence model training by third-party collaborators” if they don’t want their data to be processed.
Finally, the set of changes also included the removal of standard text claiming that the service was “not knowingly selling user information”. This leaves the question of whether they do it now.
