Facebook admits to scraping every Australian adult user's public data
Facebook has admitted that it scrapes the public photos, posts and other data of Australian adult users to train its AI models and provides no opt-out option, even though it allows people in the European Union to refuse consent. Meta's global privacy director Melinda Claybaugh was pressed at an inquiry as to whether the social media giant was hoovering up the data of all Australians in order to build its generative artificial intelligence tools, and initially rejected that claim.
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Labor senator Tony Sheldon asked whether Meta had used Australian posts from as far back as 2007 to feed its AI products, to which Claybaugh responded "we have not done that". But that was quickly challenged by Greens senator David Shoebridge. Shoebridge stated, "The truth of the matter is that unless you have consciously set those posts to private since 2007, Meta has just decided that you will scrape all of the photos and all of the texts from every public post on Instagram or Facebook since 2007, unless there was a conscious decision to set them on private. That's the reality, isn't it?" Claybaugh acknowledged Shoebridge's statement by saying, "Correct."
Opt-out Options and Privacy Concerns
Claybaugh added that accounts of people under 18 were not scraped, but when asked by Sheldon whether public photos of his own children on his account would be scraped, Claybaugh acknowledged they would. The Facebook representative could not answer whether the company scraped data from previous years of users who were now adults but were under 18 when they created their accounts.
In June, Meta notified users in the European Union and United States that it would use their data to train its generative AI products, such as Meta AI unless users opted out. The company provided an opt-out option to EU users in part because of legal uncertainty surrounding strict privacy laws covering those nations. However, Claybaugh admitted to the inquiry that those opt-out options were not offered to Australians.
Privacy Laws and Regulation
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Claybaugh explained the differences by stating, "In Europe there is an ongoing legal question around what is the interpretation of existing privacy law with respect to AI training. We have paused launching our AI products in Europe while there is a lack of certainty. So you are correct that we are offering an opt-out to users in Europe." She further emphasized that the ongoing conversation in Europe is the direct result of the existing regulatory landscape.
Senator Shoebridge highlighted the importance of privacy laws and stated, "There's a reason that people's privacy is protected in Europe and not in Australia; it's because European lawmakers made tough privacy laws. Meta made it clear today that if Australia had these same laws Australians' data would also have been protected." He criticized the Australian government's failure to act on privacy and its impact on the exploitation of data by companies like Meta.
Upcoming Reforms and Legislation
The Australian government is due to announce long-awaited reforms to the Privacy Act in response to a 2020 review that found the current laws are outdated. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus mentioned earlier this year that the legislation would be announced in August, signaling a step towards addressing privacy concerns and data protection in the country.
- This story was first published by the ABC
