In a government inquiry into AI adoption in Australia, Meta’s global privacy director Melinda Claybaugh was asked whether her company was collecting data from Australians to train its generative AI technology.
According to ABC News, Claybaugh initially denied the claim, but when pressed, she eventually admitted that Meta scrapes all photos and text in all Facebook and Instagram posts from 2007 onwards, unless the user has made their post private. In addition, she admitted that the company is not giving Australians an opt-out option as it does to EU users.
Claybaugh said Meta does not scrape the accounts of users under the age of 18, but admitted that the company still collects their photos and other information if they are posted on the accounts of their parents or guardians. However, she could not answer whether the company collects data from previous years once the user has turned 18. Asked why Meta doesn’t give Australians the option to not consent to data collection, Claybaugh said it was “in response to a very specific legal framework” in place in the EU, likely related to the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Meta had informed users in the EU that it would collect their data for AI training unless they opted out. “I would say the conversation that’s going on in Europe is a direct result of the current regulatory landscape,” Claybaugh told questioning. But even in this area, Claybaugh said there is “an ongoing legal question about the interpretation of existing privacy law with respect to AI training.”
Meta decided not to offer its multimodal AI model and future versions in the bloc due to a lack of clarity on the part of European regulators. Most of its concerns centered around the difficulties of training AI models with European users’ data while complying with GDPR rules.
Despite legal questions about AI adoption in Europe, the conclusion is that Meta is giving users in the bloc the power to block data collection. “Meta made it clear today that Australians’ data would be just as safe if the same laws were in place in Australia,” Australian Senator David Shoebridge told ABC News. “The government’s failure to act on privacy means that companies like Meta are continuing to monetize and exploit children’s photos and videos on Facebook.”