Meta Platforms Under Fire in Norway For Using Private User Data From Facebook, Instagram For AI Training

Meta Platforms Inc. META has been hit with a complaint in Norway for using user images and posts from Facebook and Instagram to train AI models.

What Happened: The Norwegian Consumer Council claims that the opt-out process violates strict EU data protection laws, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. They argue that Meta employs deceptive design patterns and vague language to make opting out difficult.

Meta has previously faced complaints in Europe for allegedly not obtaining proper consent before collecting user data for targeted advertising. The EU’s top court has also warned Meta to protect public information on sexual orientation from being used in personalized ads.

Inger Lise Blyverket, head of the Norwegian Consumer Council, stated, “We are urging the Data Protection Authority to assess the legality of Meta's practices and to ensure that the company is operating in compliance of the law.”

The complaint, drafted by the European Center for Digital Rights, will be submitted to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority and other European data protection authorities. The Irish Data Protection Commission, as Meta’s lead authority in the EU, will also be involved.

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Why It Matters: This complaint comes on the heels of Meta’s recent decision to use public social media content from Europe to train its AI models. Meta planned to employ content from platforms like Instagram and Facebook for training its Llama large language models. This decision aligns its data usage policies in Europe with those in other regions.

Furthermore, Meta has been under scrutiny in the EU with 11 privacy complaints filed against it. These complaints were lodged by the advocacy group NOYB, urging national privacy watchdogs to halt Meta’s intended use of personal data for AI training. These changes, set to take effect on June 26, would allow Meta to use years of personal posts, images, and online tracking data.

Price Action: As of Wednesday, Meta’s stock closed at $508.84, while it was trading 0.45% lower at $506.54 on Thursday’s pre-market, according to Benzinga Pro. The stock has a 52-week high of $531.49 and a low of $265.33.

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Image Credit – Shutterstock

This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Pooja Rajkumari