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- Meta is once again facing pressure from the EU; this time for making a change in its privacy policy that will allow the company to use user data for training its AI models.
- The matter was brought up by the advocacy group NOYB (None of Your Business), which filed 11 complaints against the company.
- If found guilty, Meta will have to pay a fine of up to 4% of its total annual turnover.
- Meta has denied any wrongdoing and said that whatever it does is in compliance with the EU laws.
Meta has landed in trouble with the EU once again. On Thursday (June 6), 11 complaints were filed against the company for proposing certain policy changes that would allow it to use user data for training its AI models without needing consent.
The changes were set to take place from June 26 onwards. This not only goes against EU’s guidelines but would put years of posts, private images, and data of millions of Meta users at risk.
The complaints were filed by the advocacy group NOYB (None of Your Business) in 11 countries:
- Austria
- Greece
- Germany
- Ireland
- Italy
- Belgium
- France
- Norway
- Spain
It urged each of the national privacy watchdogs to take immediate steps against Meta.
The problem is, since Meta didn’t make it clear what this data would be used for, your guess is as good as mine. It can be used for something as simple as training a chatbot or as dangerous as aggressively targeting users with personalized ads. No one really knows.
Another concern: Meta said that it can make the data of its users available to any third party. This basically means that anyone in the world with a bit of money to throw at Meta can have access to your private data.
“Meta is basically saying that 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’.”- NOYB founder Max Schrems
However, it’s well worth noting that Meta launched an online form last year, which gives users the choice to exclude personal data from Meta’s AI training.
This sounds a bit like what Microsoft tried to do with Windows Recall, giving users the option to disable it but having it on by default.
Meta has denied all the allegations made by NOYB. It referred to one of its old blogs dated May 20 and said that it only uses publicly available and licensed data to train its AI models.
A spokesperson from the company also said that Meta’s practices are completely aligned with the rules and regulations of the EU.
However, what’s interesting is that Meta has previously mentioned that it has a ‘legitimate interest’ in using people’s data for AI training.
NOYB argued that a 2021 court ruling already made it clear that no company’s legitimate interest can be used as an excuse to override users’ right to data security.
The EU is yet to respond to the complaint filed by NOYB. But if Meta is found guilty, it will have to pay a fine of up to 4% of its total annual turnover.
Operating in European countries is proving to be very challenging for Meta lately. The EU is coming up with strict laws one after the other and Meta is falling into legal trouble almost every single week.
In truth, similar incidences keep happening every few months with almost every big AI company around, which only goes to indicate that there’s something inherently wrong with the fabric of the AI industry.
For now, stay tuned for more information; I’ll be back with an update when EU responds to NOYB’s complaints.
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