Austrian privacy campaigner Max Schrems has secured yet another victory against Facebook owner Meta, after the tech giant has paused plans to exploit years of personal posts, private images or online tracking data on its social media sites to build a new artificial intelligence platform.
The move, which emerged late on Friday evening, follows 11 separate complaints filed by Schrems’ privacy organisation, NOYB. These flagged up that, instead of asking users for their consent via an opt-in, Meta said that it had a “legitimate interest” that overrode data protection principles.
While the Irish DPC initially approved the introduction of Meta AI in the EU/EEA, it appears that other regulators have pushed back in recent days – following NOYB’s complaints – causing the DPC to do a U-turn on its advice to Meta.
The DPC said: “We welcome the decision by Meta to pause its plans to train its large language model using public content shared by adults on Facebook and Instagram across the EU/EEA. This decision followed intensive engagement between the DPC and Meta. The DPC, in co-operation with its fellow EU data protection authorities, will continue to engage with Meta on this issue.”
The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has also waded in, claiming that Meta has reflected on its concerns from UK users, insisting that the company had responded to the ICO’s request to pause and review plans to use Facebook and Instagram user data to train generative AI.
The ICO added: “We will continue to monitor major developers of generative AI, including Meta, to review the safeguards they have put in place and ensure the information rights of UK users are protected.”
However, while welcoming the decision, Schrems has pointed out that there had been no official change to the Meta privacy policy that would make this commitment legally binding.
He continued: “The cases we have filed are ongoing and will require an official decision. Meta’s official statement reads a bit like ‘collective punishment’. If one European insists on his or her rights, the whole continent will not get our shiny new products. But Meta has every opportunity to deploy AI based on valid consent – it just chooses not to do so.
“As usual with defeats for big tech companies, this announcement came on a Friday evening, when news is least likely to be picked up. It seems that Meta wants to play down the story – which could also affect its stock price.”
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