Meta will begin using publicly shared content from adult users in the UK on Facebook and Instagram to train its artificial intelligence models. The company will use publicly available information, such as adult users’ posts, comments, photos, and captions on both platforms.

“We’re building AI at Meta to reflect the diverse communities around the world and we look forward to launching it in more countries and languages later this year,” Meta said . 

Meta said it does not use information from accounts of people in the UK under the age of 18. Source: Meta

In July, Meta paused AI releases in the European Union following the Irish Data Protection Commission’s orders to halt its AI assistant rollout in the EU due to data privacy concerns. Meta uses data from Facebook and Instagram users to train its AI models but asserts that this is done with user consent and offers an opt-out option.

Meta to use public information only

Meta said it will use public information, such as posts, comments, photos, and captions from adult users on Instagram and Facebook, to enhance its generative AI models for Meta’s features and experiences, including for users in the UK.

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UK-based adults on Facebook and Instagram will begin receiving in-app notifications detailing Meta’s data usage practices and providing an option to object to their data being used for AI training. Meta elaborated:

“We won’t contact people who have already objected as we’ll continue to honor their choice. We’ll honor all objection forms already received, as well as new objection forms submitted.” 

Irish regulator tightens vigilance over AI 

The Data Protection Commission (DPC), the Irish supervisory authority for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has been tightening its oversight.

On Sept. 12, it started a cross-border investigation into Google Ireland Limited to determine whether Google followed EU data protection laws while developing its artificial intelligence model.

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The regulator will investigate the use of EU citizens’ personal data in training Google’s Pathways Language Model 2 (PaLM2). Introduced on May 10, 2023, PaLM2 is an advanced language model featuring enhanced multilingual, reasoning, and coding abilities. 

Data Protection Commission (DPC) launches inquiry into Google AI model. Source: DPC

The DPC also investigated the social media platform X, and the investigation concluded after X agreed to meet the required compliance standards .

On Sept. 4, X agreed to stop using personal data from users in the EU and European Economic Area (EEA). This data had previously been used to train its artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok.

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