Meta faces legal threat over AI training plans using Europeans’ data

A Vienna-based privacy campaign group said Wednesday it has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Meta, after the tech giant announced plans to train its artificial intelligence models with European users’ personal data.

The move comes after Meta said last month it would push ahead with plans to use personal data from European users of its Instagram and Facebook platforms for AI technology training from May 27, despite criticism over its legality.

Privacy complaints

Meta has been hit with multiple privacy complaints in Europe, but cited a “legitimate interest” to process personal data for AI training.

The privacy group, the European Center for Digital Rights — also known as Noyb (“None of Your Business”) — threatened to file an injunction or class-action lawsuit against Meta if it does not halt plans.

“Meta’s absurd claims that stealing everyone’s (personal) data is necessary for AI training is laughable,” Noyb founder Max Schrems said in a statement.

“Other AI providers do not use social network data –- and generate even better models than Meta,” he added.

Delays and pauses

When Meta AI first launched in the European Union in late March, the tech giant was at pains to point out that the chatbot was not trained on data from European users.

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Its rollout on the continent was delayed by more than a year as a result of overlapping European regulations on emerging technologies, including user data, AI and digital markets.

Following the complaints, Meta temporarily put its AI plans on hold in June 2024, before recently announcing it would go ahead with them.

“It is… totally absurd to argue that Meta needs the personal data of everyone that uses Facebook or Instagram in the past 20 years to train AI,” Schrems said, adding the plans were “neither legal nor necessary”.

‘Money more important than user rights’

“Meta simply says that (its) interest in making money is more important than the rights of its users,” he said, adding that users could simply be asked for their consent.

With about 400 million estimated Meta users in Europe, the approval of 10 percent of them would “already clearly be sufficient” for AI language training and the like, Schrems said.

Launched in 2018, Noyb has taken several court proceedings against technology giants, often prompting action from regulatory authorities.

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