Consumer protection organisation Test Achats has filed a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority against social media giant Meta's new privacy policy. The move comes several days after a privacy NGO filed a similar complaint against the company in 11 countries, including Belgium.
Meta, the parent company of some of the world's largest social media platforms will on 26 June implement a new privacy policy. It would allow the company to use years of its users' public data, including their personal details, photos, posts and comments, to train its artificial intelligence.
Despite the major impact of this policy on users' privacy, few people are aware of what will be changing. A notice about the new privacy policy did appear in the notifications of users of the social networking sites Facebook and Instagram, but many will likely have dismissed this or not noticed it, therefore remaining uninformed of the implications.
'Completely illegal methods'
Test Achats has argued that users are not properly informed about it and cannot effectively exercise their right to object.
"Meta requires consumers to justify their refusal, reserves the right to disapprove the refusal and clearly announces that content from people who have exercised their right to object will indeed be used if it is posted by users who have not," the consumer protection organisation said.
It stated this is a violation of the law and has therefore filed a complaint against this new privacy policy with the Data Protection Authority in Belgium, urging it to take all appropriate measures to prevent the application of this new privacy policy.
"The methods Meta uses are completely illegal," said Laura Clays, spokesperson for the consumer organisation. "Not only are the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Digital Services Act (DSA) not complied with, but many questions remain unanswered: what about content involving minors, or people who do not have a profile on the platform, and therefore have not been able to object?" she added.
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In the meantime, Test Achats has called on users to exercise their right to object via the appropriate form (it published a step-by-step guide explaining to users how to exercise this right) and report any problems via its website.
Privacy NGO noyb ('none of your business') already filed a complaint against Meta with national privacy watchdogs in 11 European countries, including Belgium, last week. "Meta is basically saying that it can use any data from any source for any purpose and make it available to anyone in the world, as long as it’s done via 'AI technology'," nyob's Max Schrems said.
