Germany’s data protection authority in Hamburg has dropped a case aimed at stopping Meta from using the personal information of its users to train its AI model.
Social media giant Meta started training its AI model on personal information of Instagram and Facebook users as of Tuesday. That decision has been contested by privacy experts who argue it’s against the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
The Hamburg data protection authority (DPA) confirmed to Euractiv that it would not go ahead with its urgency procedure to stop Meta’s plan as it has decided not to be the only EU supervisory authority ruling against the tech giant. A decision from the DPA would have only put a stop to the training program within Germany.
“Given the forthcoming EU-wide evaluation of Meta’s practices, an isolated urgency procedure for Germany is not a suitable path” the Hamburg DPA told Euractiv.
The decision also takes into account Friday’s decision from a regional court in Cologne, which allowed Meta to continue mining data to train its models. The Irish authorities, which oversees Meta’s compliance with data protection rules, did not oppose the plans either in a recent statement.
(jp)
