EU Advocacy Group Threatens Legal Action Against Meta Over AI Data Use

Meta Platforms plans to resume training its AI models using personal data from European users' public social media posts and interactions, citing a December opinion from the European Data Protection Board as legal justification. However, this move has faced strong opposition from the Vienna-based privacy group NOYB, which argues that Meta is violating EU privacy laws by relying on a 'legitimate interest' legal basis rather than obtaining explicit user consent. NOYB has issued cease-and-desist letters and threatened to seek an EU-wide injunction and potential class-action lawsuits, highlighting risks of substantial damages given the scale of affected users. Meta offers users the option to opt out through a complex objection process, but NOYB contends that an opt-in consent mechanism is required, especially given prior European Court of Justice rulings limiting Meta's claims of legitimate interest for data use. The privacy group also notes that other AI developers provide competitive models without relying on social media data, positioning Meta's approach as unnecessary and legally questionable. The dispute underscores ongoing tensions between AI development ambitions and stringent European data protection standards.