EU Urges Meta to Stop Using Personal Data for AI

On Thursday, advocacy group NOYB urged European privacy officials to halt Meta from using personal data to train its AI models without authorization

NOYB (none of your business) has implored national privacy watchdogs to take immediate action. The organization has stated that recent modifications to Meta’s privacy policy, which will be implemented on June 26, would enable the company to utilize years of personal posts, private images, or online tracking data for the AI technology of the Facebook owner.

According to the advocacy group, it has filed 11 complaints against Meta. It has requested that data protection authorities in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Spain initiate an urgent procedure in light of the coming changes.

Meta denied NOYB’s criticism and cited a blog post from May 22, stating that it employs publicly available online and licensed information to train AI and information that individuals have publicly shared about its products and services.

Nevertheless, a message sent to Facebook users stated that Meta may continue to process information about individuals who do not use its products and services or have an account if they are mentioned in posts or captions shared by a user or appear in an image.

“We are confident that our approach complies with privacy laws, and our approach is consistent with how other tech companies are developing and improving their AI experiences in Europe (including Google and Open AI),” according to a spokesperson.

NOYB has already submitted numerous complaints against Meta and other Big Tech companies regarding purported violations of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which threatens penalties of up to 4% of a company’s total global turnover for such violations.

Meta has previously asserted a genuine interest in utilizing users’ data to train and develop its generative AI models and other AI tools, which can be shared with third parties.

Max Schrems, the founder of NOYB, stated in a statement that the European Court of Justice had already addressed this matter in 2021.

“The European Court of Justice (CJEU) has already made it clear that Meta has no ‘legitimate interest’ to override users’ right to data protection when it comes to advertising,” said the executive.

“However, the organization is endeavoring to employ the same arguments to justify training an undefined “AI technology.” Schrems stated, “It appears that Meta is once again flagrantly disregarding the decisions of the CJEU.” He also noted that the process of opting out was exceedingly intricate.

“It is entirely absurd to assign responsibility to the user,” Schrems stated that the law mandates that Meta obtain opt-in consent rather than presenting a concealed and deceptive opt-out form.

He also said, “Meta must request your consent to use your data.” Instead, they compelled users to plead for exclusion.