In recent weeks, a short but important message has ticked in among all other notifications on your Facebook and Instagram:
“We’re planning new AI features for you. Read more about how we use your information,” the small box says.
If you open the message, more information unfolds about how the tech giant will use your information to develop new AI tools that will be used, among other things, for advertising content. Meta – the company behind Facebook and Instagram – will therefore use all images, videos, comments and posts on your social media profiles – right from when you created them – to train their new language model.
But if you don’t want to contribute to it, it’s not just about avoiding it. You have to make a written objection through a form – that is, send in arguments to Meta for why you are not participating in that game. Meta must then look through them, where they reserve the right to reject an objection.
This is problematic, thinks the Consumer Council Tænk.
– I think they make it difficult for users to object, says Ida Nynne Reislev, who is a lawyer at the Consumer Council.
– In our view, this is such a far-reaching change that you just need to be able to say ‘no thanks’ to it with a single click.
For some, the link you have to click on to object doesn’t work at all. One of those who have experienced problems with it is DR’s tech correspondent, Henrik Moltke.
– The link doesn’t work at all for me. Meta is clearly trying to make it as difficult as possible so that as few users as possible make use of this opportunity to say no thanks to having their data used to train artificial intelligence, he says.
He calls Meta’s approach ‘unsympathetic’, but also points out that the method is not new.
– It is a company that goes as far as they possibly can – and sometimes over the limit. So it doesn’t come as a surprise to me, says Henrik Moltke.
Meta will put its own interests first
The Consumer Council Tænk does not believe that Meta’s way of announcing the change – and the legal basis they have chosen – is the right one.
As a user, you have the right to object according to the Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Meta has chosen to rely on a legal basis called “legitimate interests”. This is precisely what makes them reserve the right to reject an objection if they believe that their interests outweigh those of the users.
But they could easily have chosen a consent model where users were given the opportunity to simply say “yes” or “no” to their data being used, the tech lawyer believes.
– We have a problem with Meta having the option to refuse and to say that their interests are more important than the user’s, says Ida Nynne Reislev.
The consumer council Tænk is investigating whether the legal basis on which Meta relies is the right one.
According to the interest organization NOYB (None of Your Business), which works for data security, there is no doubt that the procedure is illegal. In a statement to Reuters, founder Max Schrems says that Europe’s highest court has already ruled on the issue in 2021.
– Shifting the responsibility onto the user is completely absurd. The law requires Meta to obtain opt-in consent, not a hidden and misleading opt-out form. If Meta wants to use your data, they have to ask for your permission. Instead, they make users beg to be banned, he says.
