Austrian privacy group NOYB says it expects more complaints to come.
advertisementAustrian privacy advocacy group NOYB today (June 6) filed a complaint in 11 European countries, alleging that Meta is planning to use the personal data of its platform users to train artificial intelligence models.
According to NOYB, the lawsuit comes after Meta updated its privacy policy to require it to take all public and private user data it has collected since 2007, excluding person-to-person chats, and use it for current and future “artificial intelligence technology.”
In a statement last week, the tech giant said it would begin to inform people in the UK and EU about “how public information shared in Meta products and services will be used to develop and improve Meta's AI, within the bounds of their respective privacy laws.”
According to NOYB, users were not provided with any information about the purpose of the “AI technology,” which violates the requirements of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). To process personal data in the EU, companies must rely on one of six legal bases under GDPR, such as opt-in consent.
“Meta basically says 'you can use any data from any source for any purpose and make it available to anyone in the world' as long as it's done via 'AI technology'. This is clearly against GDPR compliance. 'AI technology' is a very broad term. Like 'use data in a database' there are no real legal restrictions,” said NOYB lawyer Max Schrems.
Meta said it is “committed to developing AI responsibly” and that core to this is “ensuring that our approach complies with local privacy laws.”
NOYB has requested an “expedited procedure” under EU data protection regulations, as Meta's policy will come into effect on June 26. The company claims that the changes are concerning as they involve the personal data of around 4 billion Meta users.
Complaints have been submitted to privacy watchdogs in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Spain, with complainants in other EU countries expected to follow in the coming days.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) told EuronewsNext last week that “Meta has delayed its launch for a number of reasons.” [of] The DPC's queries have been addressed,” it said, adding that Meta had notified users four weeks before the initial training.
Meta has its own large-scale language model called Llama, the latest version of which (Llama 3) was released in April and is used to power its assistant Meta AI, but it is not yet available in Europe.
