AI and Social Media Meta plans AI-training with your user data.

Meta intends to use the data of European users of Facebook, Instagram and presumably Threads to train its AI models from the end of May 2025. This includes posts, photos and comments, but not private messages. The use of this data is intended to improve AI applications such as the Meta AI chatbot on WhatsApp or language models such as Llama.

Meta had already announced similar plans last year, but put them on hold for the time being following concerns from the Irish Data Protection Commission (IDPC). According to Techopedia, Meta is now offering a simplified option to object. Users who do not want their data to be used for AI training can object via the settings in the respective apps or via the following links:

• Facebook: Objection form

• Instagram: Objection form

An objection should be made before the end of May 2025 if possible, as data can no longer be removed from the AI models once it has been used for training.

Data protection assessment

According to the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (HmbBfDI), the use of personal data for the training of AI models is questionable under data protection law. Although Meta emphasises that it only uses publicly accessible data, there are concerns that users are not sufficiently informed about the use of their data and have no real choice.

Conclusion

The planned use of personal data by Meta for AI training purposes raises significant data protection issues. Users should be aware of the implications and, if necessary, exercise their right to object in order to control the use of their data.