American multinational company Meta announced in April that it was going to train its artificial intelligence (AI) tool with the public personal data of its European users. Those who do not want their data to be used for this purpose have the right to object. Here's what to do.
Artificial intelligence is a system that simulates human intelligence, but to work well, it must learn to "become intelligent." To do this, it trains itself with a large amount of data. From 27 May, Meta will use the public data of (adult) European users of Facebook and Instagram to train its AI systems.
Users of these applications should receive (or have received) a notification informing them of this. Now, the Belgian Data Protection Agency (DPA) is informing people on how to exercise their right to opt out of this practice.
"European users can decide for themselves whether they want their data to be used to develop these AI systems," the DPA said. "This right must be exercised before 27 May 2025."
How do you object?
If users are happy with publicly accessible posts, comments or photos from their accounts being used for this purpose, they do not need to take any action. However, those who do not want their publicly accessible activities to be used to train these AI systems "must actively take steps to object to this processing," the DPA said.
According to Meta, users are informed about this right via email and are given a link to an objection form. The form can also be accessed directly via Facebook (or in the app via Settings and privacy > Privacy centre) and Instagram (or in the app via Settings and activity > Privacy centre).
"The right to object can in principle be exercised at any time. But once data has been used to train an AI, the AI cannot 'unlearn' it," the DPA said. "To effectively object to the use of their data, users must therefore exercise their right before 27 May."
Credit: Belga
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) grants data subjects a range of rights. Some rights always apply, while others only apply in specific situations.
If an organisation processes your data based on a "legitimate interest" – which is often the reason given by companies training AI systems – the data subject has the right to object to the processing of their personal data.
All online platforms that use their users' data to develop AI systems based on this "legitimate interest" must provide information about the possibility to object to such processing, and provide procedures to facilitate the exercise of this right to object.
