The European Internet Rights Center Noyb filed complaints in 11 European countries to prevent the company Meta (formerly Facebook) from implementing its plan to train artificial intelligence products using posts and personal photos taken from Facebook and Instagram accounts of European users.
The company uses public and private posts, with data collection dating back to 2007. This also includes accounts that have become inactive, meaning individuals who seem to have stopped posting.
It appears that Meta is seeking to obtain everything except personal conversations, although it has stated that it is fair to access conversations between users and companies. Meta intends to start implementing this plan on June 26.
Artificial intelligence companies have previously faced strong criticism for using data to train their products without explicit consent.
Currently, it is said that the data of Meta users in Europe must be protected according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines, at least for users residing in the Union.
Max Schrems, founder of the European Digital Rights Center Noyb, said: “Meta claims to have the ability to use any data from any source for any purpose and provide it to anyone in the world as long as it is done using artificial intelligence technology.”
He pointed out that this is completely contradictory to data protection law compliance. Artificial intelligence technology is a broad term that does not have real legal boundaries in the same way your data is used in databases.
It is unclear how the existing data can be used, whether for chatbots training, personal ad customization, or military drone training.
Meta vaguely stated that it uses data in training generative artificial intelligence.
The company mentioned in a blog post in May the necessity of training information that reflects the diversity of cultures and languages in European societies.
Last February, Mark Zuckerberg mentioned the presence of hundreds of billions of images and tens of billions of public videos that his company could benefit from.
Reports suggest that users are collectively leaving Instagram due to their reluctance to use their data by Meta.
The company granted its employees the option to unsubscribe or “right to object”, and the European Digital Rights Center Noyb announced: “Meta makes the objection process complex and requires personal reasons.”
