Advocacy group threatens Meta with injunction over use of EU data for AI training

Foo Yun Chee

Tue, May 13, 2025, 10:14 PM 2 min read

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Austrian advocacy radical NOYB said connected Wednesday it would question an injunction against Meta Platforms that could pb to billion-euro damages claims if the tech elephantine goes up with plans to usage Europeans' idiosyncratic information to bid its artificial quality models.

NOYB (none of your business), led by privateness activistic Max Schrems, said it had sent a cease and desist missive connected Wednesday to Meta which plans to commencement utilizing idiosyncratic information from European users of Instagram and Facebook from May 27.

Meta has cited a morganatic involvement nether EU privateness rules for utilizing users' information to bid and make its generative AI models and different AI tools, which tin beryllium shared with 3rd parties.

The U.S. tech elephantine said past period that users would person a nexus to a signifier wherever they tin entity to their information being utilized for grooming purposes and that backstage messages and nationalist information from accounts of users nether the property of 18 volition not beryllium utilized successful the training.

Schrems criticised Meta's rationale.

"The European Court of Justice has already held that Meta cannot assertion a 'legitimate interest' successful targeting users with advertising. How should it person a 'legitimate interest' to suck up each information for AI training?" helium said successful a statement.

"We are presently evaluating our options to record injunctions, but determination is besides the enactment for a consequent people enactment for non-material damages. If you deliberation astir the much than 400 cardinal European Meta users who could each request damages of conscionable 500 euros oregon so, you tin bash the math," Schrems said.

NOYB said an injunction could beryllium filed nether the EU Collective Redress which enables consumers to prosecute corporate lawsuits against companies successful the bloc. It acceptable a May 21 deadline for Meta to respond.

NOYB, which past twelvemonth called connected EU privateness enforcers to act, said Meta could springiness users an enactment to opt-in alternatively than opt-out and besides supply wide conditions for AI grooming specified arsenic utilizing anonymised idiosyncratic data, successful enactment with EU privateness rules.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Susan Fenton)