Meta Platforms Inc. was hit with a Norwegian complaint over its plans to use the images and posts of users on Facebook and Instagram to train artificial intelligence models.
The process to opt-out breaches strict E.U. data protection rules and “has been made deliberately cumbersome by using deceptive design patterns and vague wording,” the Norwegian Consumer Council said in a statement Thursday.
Meta has faced complaints in Europe for allegedly failing to get proper consent before collecting user data in order to target the ads users see. The tech giant was also warned by the E.U.’s top court that public information on sexual orientation should be safeguarded from being used for personalized advertising.
“We are urging the Data Protection Authority to assess the legality of Meta’s practices and to ensure that the company is operating in compliance of the law,” Inger Lise Blyverket, head of the Norwegian Consumer Council, said in the statement.
The legal complaint was written by the European Center for Digital Rights and will be submitted to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority and other European data protection authorities. The Irish Data Protection Commission is the lead authority for Meta due to its E.U. base in Dublin.