Meta to use public posts, AI interactions to train models in EU

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms said on Monday it would use interactions that users have with its AI, as well as public posts and comments shared by adults across its platforms, to train its artificial intelligence models in the European Union.

The Facebook parent's move comes after Meta launched its AI technology in Europe last month, a roll-out that was initially announced in June 2024 but delayed following regulatory concerns on data protection and privacy.

While Meta AI was launched in the U.S. in 2023, its roll-out in Europe faced several hurdles due to the EU's stringent privacy and transparency rules.

Meta said on Monday people in the EU who use its platforms including Facebook and Instagram will start receiving notifications explaining what kind of data the company will harness. Users will also receive a link to a form where they can object to their data being used for training purposes.

While the company will use data such as user queries and questions on Meta AI, private messages as well as public data from accounts of users under the age of 18 will not be used in the training.

The European Commission did not respond to a request for comment on Meta's move.

Meta decided to pause the launch of its AI models in Europe last June after Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) told the company to delay its plan to harness data from social media posts. It also faced backlash from advocacy group NOYB, which urged national privacy watchdogs to stop such use of social media content.

Elon Musk's X and Alphabet's Google are also being looked into by the Irish privacy regulator.

X is facing an investigation over the use of EU users' personal data to train its AI system, Grok, while the DPC opened a probe into Google in September on whether the company adequately protected users' data before using it to help develop its AI model.

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)