Guarantor, from the end of May Meta will use personal data for AI

"Facebook and Instagram users, and non-users whose data may still be present on the two platforms because they were published by users, have the right to object to the processing of their personal data for the training of Meta's AI, using the forms made available online by the company". The Privacy Guarantor reminds us of this following the company's announcement , underlining that "the opposition, if exercised by the end of May, allows all personal information to be removed from the training of Meta's AI". In the event of failure to object, Meta "will use all the aforementioned data for the training of its own artificial intelligences".

"Facebook and Instagram users, and non-users whose data may still be present on the two platforms because they were published by users, have the right to object to the processing of their personal data for the training of Meta's artificial intelligence, using the forms made available online by the company. This right, recognized by the GDPR - the European Regulation on the protection of personal data - can also be exercised against other AI systems, such as, for example, those of OpenAI, DeepSeek and Google", explains the Guarantor in a note, after Meta's announcement of its intention, from the end of May, to use the data contained in the public posts of adult users (posts, comments, captions, photos, etc.) and those deriving from the use of its AI services (e.g. information entered in its conversational agent on WhatsApp), to develop and improve the Meta AI chatbot on WhatsApp or linguistic models such as Llama.

"The opposition, if exercised by the end of May - the Authority recalls -, allows all personal information to be removed from the training of Meta's artificial intelligence, while if exercised later it will only affect content published subsequently and not content already online. In the event of failure to object, Meta will use all the aforementioned data to train its own artificial intelligence". The Guarantor invites the public to "inform themselves about the consequences and effects of the possible use of their personal data for the training of artificial intelligence models and to exercise their rights freely and consciously. While the data published by minor users are removed by default from Meta's processing for the training of its artificial intelligence, it is not, however, excluded that data relating to minor users and non-users may be present in content published by adult users. In this case, minor users and non-users and those who exercise parental responsibility over them should evaluate the opportunity to exercise the right to object using the form reserved for non-users of Meta's services".

In the meantime, the Guarantor is working with other European Authorities to assess the conformity of the processing of personal data that Meta has announced it wants to implement on the basis of legitimate interest. "The attention of the Guarantors - it is explained - is directed in particular to the lawfulness of such practices, to the effectiveness of the right to object and to the compatibility between the original purposes of the processing and this new use of the data. The Authorities, moreover, have asked Meta for information on the use of images of users under the age of eighteen published by adult users".