In Australia, the Meta platform has admitted to using publicly available posts, images and other data of Australian adults on Facebook and Instagram to train its own artificial intelligence (AI) models. Users are not offered an opt-out option in the country like in Europe and the United States. Melinda Claybaugh, data protection officer at Meta, said this in an Australian Senate hearing.
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This so-called “scraping” does not take place in the EU. In June, Meta temporarily suspended AI training with data under the GDPR after Ireland’s data protection authority told the Zuckerberg Group not to use data from Instagram and Facebook for algorithmic training of its large language models. A month earlier, Meta made an objection form available to its users in the EU so they could object to the use of their own data (opt-out).
In Senate hearing, Meta admits scrapping
Australia (yet) has no equivalent to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), so the country’s politicians have invited the Meta platform to a hearing on these issues. Asked if the Australian-contributed AI training Metas has dated back to 2007, Claybaugh initially said, “We have not.” But the senators, like the Australians, kept digging ABC News report,
“The truth is that Meta has simply decided that it will take down all photos and text from any public posts you make on Instagram or Facebook since 2007, unless you intentionally set those posts to private,” one senator said. “That’s the reality, isn’t it?” Claybaugh confirmed this with a succinct reply: “Correct.”
Minors virtually excluded from AI training
The Meta privacy officer said that accounts of underage users are excluded from AI training. However, Claybaugh had to admit that photos of children posted publicly by parents are still taken by the AI. However, she was unable to answer whether Meta uses posts and images from previous years for AI training if the user is now an adult but created his account as a minor.
Just a few days ago, Australian Prime Minister Albanese called the social network harmful to children and announced that he would take action on youth safety, following which Australia demanded a minimum age for young people on social media. He suggests an age limit between 14 and 16 years. A possible law is expected to be introduced in Parliament this year.
Data protection law reform is overdue
However, Australian citizens have been waiting for a new data protection law for years after the existing rules were found to be outdated in 2020. Australia’s Attorney General announced earlier this year that law reform would be announced in August. But now senators are complaining about the persistent lack of data protection in Australia.
“There’s a reason people’s privacy is protected in Europe and not in Australia: European legislators have passed tough data protection laws,” Greens Senator Shoebridge said. “Meta made it clear today that if similar laws were in place in Australia, Australians’ data would be protected too.”
(FDS)
