- A German consumer protection group calls on Meta to stop its AI training plans in the EU
- All public submissions and user interactions are set to feed Meta AI from 27 May 2025
- Meta claims that AI education complies with the EU
A German consumer protection group encourages Meta to stop its plan to start training its AI models with the EU users’ data.
Verbraucherzentral North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has sent a termination and relinquish a letter to Big Tech Giant on April 30, 2025 to demand that Facebook and Instagram stop their AI training plans. The group also threatens additional litigation if Meta decides not to comply.
“It is imperative to act quickly, because when data is incorporated into AI, it is difficult to retrieve it,” said Christine Steffen, data protection expert at North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Advice Center, in an official announcement.
All public submissions and users’ interactions are set to feed Meta AI from May 27, 2025. If they do not want this to happen, EU users have to opt out of actively opting out.
An illegal approach?
Meta, the parent company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, successfully launched Meta AI in the EU in March, almost a year after the company stopped launching in the midst of growing concerns among EU data regulators.
In its official announcement, the company ensures that its approach complies with European laws and regulations. “We welcome the opinion made by EDPB in December, which confirmed that our original approach fulfilled our legal obligations,” Meta wrote.
Specifically, the EDPB opinion provides a guide to helping Irish Data Protection Authority (DPA) to assess the use of legitimate interest as a legal basis for AI models.
However, German consumer experts now claim that a reference to legitimate interest is insufficient to Meta AI. They also point out how users should not accept that the personal information they shared with Meta over the years could now be used for AI training.
“In addition, It cannot be ruled out that particularly sensitive information, especially protected under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is also used for AI training purposes, “Steffen said.” In this case, a so-called opt-out-as is offered by meta-not sufficient; Those affected would have to actively consent to this. “
#Meta skips consent, violations #GDPR with EU -Data AI training. SApril 18, 2025
The Austrian privacy group NOYB (none of your business) also believes that Meta AI may not be in line with GDPR LOVE.
“Meta deliberately tries to ignore European law and puts its commercial interests over the basic right of data protection of those affected,” said Nyb’s co -founder and lawyer Max Schrems in an official message and shared his overall support with Verbraucherzentral NRW’s actions.
“Meta should simply ask the people affected for their consent. But if Meta ignores the EU law, there will be consequences for all of Europe,” Schrems added.
With Meta AI, which officially starts in about two weeks, we can see more actions from other European consumer groups, privacy authorities or DPA itself.
Meanwhile, privacy experts are calling for the Proton, the provider behind one of the best VPN and encrypted E -mail apps, people in Europe who are concerned about their privacy to opt out of Meta AI training. “It’s hard to predict what this data can be used in the future – better to be safe than sorry,” Proton wrote on a LinkedIn post.
If you are in the EU, you have until May 27 to prevent Facebook and Instagram from using any of your data to train their AI models. To do so, you must log into your account and fill out a purpose form (a Facebook form and one for Instagram). A reason to object is not required.
