Meta will soon use your public posts to train its AI. Can you prevent it ...
Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, will soon utilize public posts to enhance the capabilities of its artificial intelligence (AI) systems. European users recently received a message through the Instagram and Facebook mobile applications, notifying them of this upcoming initiative. Starting from June 26, public posts including photos, captions, and messages sent to AI will be used for AI training purposes. It's important to note that private messages will not be included in this data collection process.
Notification to UK and EU Users
Meta, in a statement last week, announced its plans to inform users in the UK and EU about the utilization of their public information shared on Meta's platforms for AI development within the boundaries of privacy laws. The processing of personal data for AI training falls under the legal basis of "legitimate interest" as outlined by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Meta emphasized that the gathered data will be instrumental in improving and advancing AI technologies.
Users have the option to opt-out of this data usage by submitting a form to Facebook or Instagram. The platforms have committed to reviewing objection requests in compliance with data protection regulations. If the request is approved, the opt-out will be implemented moving forward.
Data Usage and Privacy Concerns
Despite the opt-out possibility, Meta may still utilize your data if you appear in shared images or are mentioned in other users' posts or captions. The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) informed Euronews Next about Meta's delayed launch due to inquiries from DPC, which have since been addressed. Users were given a four-week notice before the commencement of the AI training process.
Meta clarified that only public data from EU-based users shared on Instagram and Facebook will be used for training, excluding data from accounts of users under 18. The company is heavily investing in AI research and product development, with a focus on their large language model (LLM) named Llama. The latest version, Llama 3, powers the Meta AI assistant, although not yet available in Europe.
AI Development and Future Prospects
Meta has been leveraging Instagram and Facebook posts from public profiles to train its assistant AI, as reported by Reuters. The new initiative extends beyond the previous dataset that powered Llama 2. Moreover, Meta is actively enhancing infrastructure for AI workloads and recently introduced its proprietary chips for this purpose.
As Meta continues to expand its AI capabilities, users are urged to consider their privacy settings and opt-out options provided by the platform to control the usage of their public data for AI training.
