Meta Is Making Users Who Opted Out of AI Training Opt Out Again

hubie writes:

EU users have less than two weeks to opt out of Meta's AI training:

Privacy watchdog Noyb sent a cease-and-desist letter to Meta Wednesday, threatening to pursue a potentially billion-dollar class action to block Meta's AI training, which starts soon in the European Union.

In the letter, Noyb noted that Meta only recently notified EU users on its platforms that they had until May 27 to opt their public posts out of Meta's AI training data sets. According to Noyb, Meta is also requiring users who already opted out of AI training in 2024 to opt out again or forever lose their opportunity to keep their data out of Meta's models, as training data likely cannot be easily deleted. That's a seeming violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Noyb alleged.

"Meta informed data subjects that, despite that fact that an objection to AI training under Article 21(2) GDPR was accepted in 2024, their personal data will be processed unless they object again-against its former promises, which further undermines any legitimate trust in Meta's organizational ability to properly execute the necessary steps when data subjects exercise their rights," Noyb's letter said.

[...] The letter accused Meta of further deceptions, like planning to seize data that users may not consider "public," like disappearing stories typically only viewed by small audiences. That, Noyb said, differs significantly from AI crawlers scraping information posted on a public website.

According to Noyb, there would be no issue with Meta's AI training in the EU if Meta would use a consent-based model rather than requiring rushed opt-outs. As Meta explained in a blog following a threatened preliminary injunction on AI training in Germany, the company plans to collect AI training data using a "legitimate interest" legal basis, which supposedly "follows the clear guidelines of the European Data Protection Committee of December 2024, which reflect the consensus between EU data protection authorities."

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.