Meta is the target of complaints in 11 European countries following changes to its privacy policy. The company is accused of illegally using Internet users’ private data to develop its AI.
Meta has not hidden, for several months now, its ambition to integrate artificial intelligence into its various services, namely Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. And to train its AI, the company needs as much data as possible! Also, many Facebook users received a strange notification a few weeks ago warning them that new AI functions were being planned.
A little digging revealed a cryptic, ominous statement:“We will now rely on the legal basis of our legitimate interests to use your information to develop and improve Meta AI”. It’s very simple, from June 26, the company will be able to collect our publications, our photos and their captions, as well as our discussions with the company’s AI. Fortunately, there is a way to oppose this (see our article). But, if we appear in an image shared on Instagram or Facebook, or if we are mentioned in publications or captions, Meta may still use this data, without us having any say. This also applies to people who do not use the company’s products and services!
In short, Meta completely adheres to the General Data Protection Regulation (the famous European GDPR). Also, this Thursday, June 6, the Austrian privacy organization None of your business (“It’s not your business” in French, or NOYB) announced in a statement having filed a complaint against Mark Zuckerberg’s company with data protection authorities in eleven European countries, including France. She asks for intervention “emergency” authorities in order to prevent it from making changes to its privacy policy effective.
Facebook data: a policy change that does not pass
Max Schrems, the founder of the NGO, is particularly alarmed. “Meta basically says it 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’, […] an extremely broad term. Just like ‘using your data in databases’, there is no real legal limit.” he explains. In addition to the public data already used to train generative AI models, Meta wants to exploit all the data of its billions of users collected since 2007.
According to Max Schrems, it is unclear how the company will use all this information. This could be for “a simple chatbot, aggressive personalized ads or even a killer drone”. Through ReutersMeta dismissed NOYB’s criticism. “We are confident that our approach complies with privacy laws and is consistent with how other technology companies are developing and improving their AI experiments in Europe (including Google and Open HAVE)”said a spokesperson.
However, European authorities have already rejected Meta’s principle of legitimate rights when the company attempted to override users’ rights to data protection in advertising. Also, the association believes that it would not have “no legal basis for processing such large quantities of personal data for completely undetermined purposes”. After these eleven States, including France, Belgium and Germany, it will initiate procedures in other EU countries “in the coming days.” For GDPR violations, fines can be up to 4% of the company’s total global turnover.